A city court judge in Bogalusa, Louisiana, is operating a modern-day debtors’ prison by illegally jailing indigent people unable to pay fines or court costs – including a man fined for stealing $5 worth of food to feed his family, according to a federal lawsuit filed today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has proposed important new standards to help rein in payday and auto title lenders who intentionally trap low-income and impoverished people in a cycle of high-interest, unaffordable debt.
Nearly three dozen prominent national and state civil rights and criminal justice groups have joined the SPLC in support of federal legislation that would end debtors’ prison practices nationwide and strip federal funding from municipalities engaging in them.
The following statement regarding the U.S. Department of Justice’s letter today to judges and court administrators about unconstitutional state court policies is by Sam Brooke, deputy legal director at the Southern Poverty Law Center:
The Alabama Court of the Judiciary censured a circuit court judge today who forced defendants unable to pay court debt to give blood or face jail time – three months after the SPLC filed an ethics complaint against the judge.
An SPLC client who served time in a modern-day debtors’ prison in Alabama when she couldn’t pay fines for minor traffic tickets told her story to congressional staffers on Capitol Hill and called for action to prevent others from going to jail simply for being poor.
The SPLC lawsuit will continue to seek damages on behalf of plaintiffs.
Incident illustrates shocking disregard for poor people overloaded with court debt, unable to pay.
Decision comes as cities across the state cut ties with company following SPLC action.
The SPLC filed a judicial ethics complaint against Perry County (Alabama) Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins after he required people unable to pay court fines to either donate blood or go to jail.
The complaint described how Wiggins threatened defendants in his court with jail on Sept. 17,...
