JAC agenda 030218 - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

NORTH CAROLINA POVERTY RESEARCH FUND 13 Court Fines and Fees: Criminalizing Poverty in North Carolina Fines, Fees and the Constitution North Carolina’s potent and spiraling scheme of criminal case user fees, restricted and disfavored waivers, and harsh tools of enforcement raise a troubling cascade of constitutional issues. They open a chasm, to be sure, between the broad-ranging American aspiration, frequently etched on courthouse walls, of equal justice under law and the present state of criminal justice administration in North Carolina—an extreme version of “poor man’s justice.” But the fee and fine structure also burdens the exercise of core constitutional rights and often denies due process of law, the foundational requirements of equality, and the necessary independence of the judicial branch. Many of these issues, individually, merit extensive, thorough and detailed study. In the months ahead, we plan to provide some of it. But the central constitutional challenges are introduced and briefly highlighted below. First, even apart from the fees and fines regime’s worrisome impact on poor people, much of it may violate North Carolina’s constitutional command for a strict separation of governmental powers. In March 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to state and federal judicial officers across the nation warning of the impropriety of using court costs to raise revenue for governments more broadly, thus casting doubt on the impartiality, independence and separate functioning of the courts.66 North Carolina’s criminal fees and costs regime is large, growing, increasingly expensive to defendants, and, often, not closely linked to expenses directly incurred in particular prosecutions. It frequently serves no actual judicial function and is, instead, seen as a revenue source for the General Fund. As the Louisiana Supreme Court has explained, courts, “should not be made tax collectors for [the] state, nor 66 Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, “Dear Colleague.” A Public Defender’s Perspective Mani Dexter worked for many years as a public defender in Orange County, North Carolina. She described, with great empathy, a less obvious way the criminal justice system mistreats poor defendants: devaluing their worth as people. Because the costs and fees are so high and so arbitrarily waived, and because the impact on our clients' lives is so great, we (those in public defense) end up focusing on our clients' poverty. We make the story about the desperate situations that our clients are in—because that's the only chance of getting them some relief. But what does this do to our clients' dignity? We stand in front of the judge, with an entire gallery of people listening in, and explain all the ways in which our clients haven't been able to make it. For people with money, the story is about the ways they have been able to give back to the community. We hear about therapy and volunteer hours, higher education and altruistic work. Because our clients spend so much of their lives trying to provide the basic necessities for themselves and their families, they don't have the luxury of activities like volunteering. People who have working cars that are insured and registered don't know how much more difficult life can be if your transportation is the bus, or paying a friend with a car a few dollars to give you a ride. The current system forces us to present our clients' lives in the most abject way we can, because there is very little understanding of what it means to live in poverty. We are forced to choose between the chance of real relief for our clients and upholding their dignity. We try to do both, but it is a difficult task.