DOJ investigation in Ferguson raised awareness of court practices nationally
By Gary Grado
The Daily Record Newswire
PHOENIX, AZ - Following a national trend, Arizona's court system is going to look at the way it treats poor people who struggle to pay their fines.
Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Scott Bales on March 3 ordered the formation of a task force that will examine the state's laws and policies to make sure people in the lower economic ranks aren't going to jail or staying there because they can't afford to pay fines or bail.
"If we're going to have justice for all of Arizona we have to be conscious of the fact that many of the people who go through our courts are going to be in financial straits," Bales said.
Roughly 18 percent of Arizonans, or 1.2 million people, fall below the federal poverty line and Arizona's recovery from the economic downturn at the turn of the decade is also lagging, Bales said.
A 2015 U.S. Department of Justice investigation of the Ferguson, Mo., Municipal Court raised the awareness of court practices and policies nationally.
DOJ conducted its investigation in the explosive aftermath of a white police officer shooting an unarmed black man.
DOJ found that Ferguson depended on revenue generated from city code enforcement and pushed police officers to aggressively enforce it, leading to stops without reasonable suspicion and arrests without probable cause.
The court participated in the city's aggressive approach to generating revenue, the report stated.
"The municipal court does not act as a neutral arbiter of the law or a check on unlawful police conduct," the report said.
Instead, DOJ said the court issued arrest warrants as a routine response to missed court appearances and payments, and not for any valid public-safety purposes.
The court also failed to provide clear and accurate information to people about their charges and obligations and failed to provide them with alternatives to incarceration when they couldn't pay, which the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled is required.
"Our investigation has found overwhelming evidence of minor municipal code violations resulting in multiple arrests, jail time, and payments that exceed the cost of the original ticket many times over," the report said.
Bales said Arizona isn't having the problems identified in Ferguson, but that city provided good reasons for the state's court system to assess whether it is doing as good of a job as possible in treating poor people fairly.
Bales said the Conference of Chief Justices launched its own task force to examine the issue last year and just this week DOJ's Civil Rights Division issued a set of guidelines for judges to treat people fairly.
Don Taylor, chief presiding judge of Phoenix Municipal Court, said a person in Arizona can't be jailed for failing to pay a fine unless a judge finds the refusal was willful.
"That's not often, that's a difficult finding to make," Taylor said.
People typically don't thumb their nose at the court; they want to pay the fines, but as the debts, financial obligations, and other unforeseen circumstances such as unexpected car repairs, illness, or the loss of a job mount, they will stop paying court fines, Taylor said.
And when a person misses a court appearance or fails to pay a fine the court is required by law to notify the state's Motor Vehicle Division, which suspends the person's driver's license.
Taylor said the person then faces the potential for jail because driving on a suspended license is a criminal offense and that person faces more fines and debt if they're stopped.
"What we've seen for years is that can create difficulties for people," Taylor said.
The Phoenix Municipal Court began the Compliance Assistance Program two months ago in which 3,000 people have participated.
"We recognized this problem exists and there are lots of people who are in a situation where they're not paying their financial obligations and so they remain in this state of where they have the license suspended," Taylor said.
Under the program, a person makes a nominal down payment and is placed on a payment plan they agree to. The court will notify MVD the person is in compliance with the court, which lifts the driver's license suspension.
"What we're really trying to do is create a pathway for people who have found themselves in this situation in the past to come back and actually take care of things," Taylor said.
Published: Thu, Mar 31, 2016
