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Civil Rights Attorneys Sue Ferguson Over 'Debtors Prisons'

you are basically

if you think it is wrong to "punish" transgressions because of income, you basically are giving them carte blanche

why should they follow the rules....you cant make them pay for it
I never said they shouldn't be held accountable. I just said it should not be incarceration.
 
Not being able to read and understand what you write yourself must be tough. I wish you good luck with that.

You just broke my irony meter.
 
Did you or didn't you state that people should not be sent to jail for victimless crimes?

That's right. What does that have to do with taxes? No one brought up taxes but you.
 
That's right. What does that have to do with taxes? No one brought up taxes but you.

Not paying your taxes is As much a "victimless crime" as not paying your fines.
 
Not paying your taxes is As much a "victimless crime" as not paying your fines.

Same as drug possession. Shouldn't result in jail time. Penalize them for sure. Work out some kind of payment plan, put them on a work detail to pay off their debt, if receiving benefits withhold a percentage until they're paid up.
 
Same as drug possession. Shouldn't result in jail time. Penalize them for sure. Work out some kind of payment plan, put them on a work detail to pay off their debt, if receiving benefits withhold a percentage until they're paid up.

You are entitled to your absolutist position. But I believe few people will agree with you that people who defraud the government of millions of dollars in taxes or launder massive sums of illegal money should under no circumstances face jail.
 
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A victimless crime is a phrase used to refer to actions that are by statute, illegal, but which do not directly violate or threaten the rights of any other individual. Piling up fines has no victim.

how is illegal parking not threatening individuals?
how is driving without a license and insurance not threatening the others?

it is. it means you are not responsible enough to drive a car.

It isn't like this is a one time thing. this person has multiple occurrences of not just traffic violations,
but driving on suspended licenses and driving without insurance.

that in and of itself puts the public at large at risk.
 
how is illegal parking not threatening individuals? how is driving without a license and insurance not threatening the others? it is. it means you are not responsible enough to drive a car. It isn't like this is a one time thing. this person has multiple occurrences of not just traffic violations, but driving on suspended licenses and driving without insurance. that in and of itself puts the public at large at risk.
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It's not my definition, it's what the law says. In Bearden v. Georgia, SCOTUS threw out the idea of imprisoning someone because they could not pay a fine. However, they also said this; a judge must first consider whether the defendant has the ability to pay but "willfully" refuses. Since the court did not instruct the judges as to how to define willfully refuses, every judge can make up their own standards on this. If, in a judges opinion, she/he feels a person can pay, but will not, then they can then go to jail....not for an inability to pay but for a "refusal to pay."

The issue here has nothing to do with a "victimless crime".
 
`
It's not my definition, it's what the law says. In Bearden v. Georgia, SCOTUS threw out the idea of imprisoning someone because they could not pay a fine. However, they also said this; a judge must first consider whether the defendant has the ability to pay but "willfully" refuses. Since the court did not instruct the judges as to how to define willfully refuses, every judge can make up their own standards on this. If, in a judges opinion, she/he feels a person can pay, but will not, then they can then go to jail....not for an inability to pay but for a "refusal to pay."

The issue here has nothing to do with a "victimless crime".

they are not being jailed for not paying a fine what part of that don't you understand?

they are being taken to jail on contempt of court. or they are being taken to jail for violation of the law.
it is pretty simple. I have gotten tickets and not going to jail for it.

ignoring a ticket is the same as not going to court. you get a contempt of court charge and you go to jail.
that is why she was arrested. it makes it worse if she was driving without a license and knowingly driving without a
insurance.
 
they are not being jailed for not paying a fine what part of that don't you understand? they are being taken to jail on contempt of court. or they are being taken to jail for violation of the law.
it is pretty simple. I have gotten tickets and not going to jail for it.gnoring a ticket is the same as not going to court. you get a contempt of court charge and you go to jail. that is why she was arrested. it makes it worse if she was driving without a license and knowingly driving without a insurance.
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I think you're confused. What part of Bearden v. Georgia don't you understand?

The ACLU is already suing Ferguson based on the Bearden v. Georgia ruling on debtors prison. Nothing to do with violating a judges order, to wit:

The suit is filed on behalf of 11 plaintiffs who say they were too poor to pay but were then jailed — sometimes for two weeks or more. - Source
 
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I think you're confused. What part of Bearden v. Georgia don't you understand?

The ACLU is already suing Ferguson based on the Bearden v. Georgia ruling on debtors prison. Nothing to do with violating a judges order, to wit:

what part of this has nothing to do with debtors prison don't you understand. bearden vs Georgia is irrelevant.
it is a strawman argument.

they are not going to debtors prison. they are going to prison for breaking the law not once but multiple times.
they probably have warrents out for their arrest.

The ACLU has no case in the matter.
 
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I think you're confused. What part of Bearden v. Georgia don't you understand?

The ACLU is already suing Ferguson based on the Bearden v. Georgia ruling on debtors prison. Nothing to do with violating a judges order, to wit:

He doesn't understand any of it and never will.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/461/660/

(a)If a State determines a fine or restitution to be the appropriate and adequate penalty for the crime, it may not thereafter imprison a person solely because he lacked the resources to pay it. Williams v. Illinois,399 U. S. 235; Tate v. Short,401 U. S. 395. If the probationer has willfully refused to pay the fine or restitution when he has the resources to pay or has failed to make sufficient bona fide efforts to seek employment or borrow money to pay, the State is justified in using imprisonment as a sanction to enforce collection. But if the probationer has made all reasonable bona fide efforts to pay the fine and yet cannot do so through no fault of his own, it is fundamentally unfair to revoke probation automatically without considering whether adequate alternative methods of punishing

the probationer are available to meet the State's interest in punishment and deterrence. Pp. 461 U. S. 664-669.

(b) The State may not use as the sole justification for imprisonment the poverty or inability of the probationer to pay the fine and to make restitution if he has demonstrated sufficient bona fide efforts to do so. Pp. 461 U. S. 669-672.

(c) Only if alternative measure of punishment are not adequate to meet the State's interests in punishment and deterrence may the court imprison a probationer who has made sufficient bona fide efforts to pay the fine. To do otherwise would deprive the probationer of his conditional freedom simply because, through no fault of his own, he cannot pay. Such a deprivation would be contrary to the fundamental fairness required by the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp. 461 U. S. 672-673.
 
With all the above being said if it's determined that the defendant just plain refuses to pay than all bets are off, he/she gets what they get.
 
With all the above being said if it's determined that the defendant just plain refuses to pay than all bets are off, he/she gets what they get.

I think you've got that backwards: only if it can be shown that the person in question has made all efforts to be able to pay the fine he or she cannot be imprisoned.
 
Maybe they could make up for the fines by cleaning the police departments' military weapons.
 
I think you've got that backwards: only if it can be shown that the person in question has made all efforts to be able to pay the fine he or she cannot be imprisoned.

Same difference.
 
I guess then the alternative to jailing those not complying to a court order is to fine them more? But what if they fail to comply with the new court order to pay fines? Hell if the courts cant do anything then perhaps we should just stop giving tickets and see how that works out?
 
You guys are all getting off track here (a common malady of this forum). The point of the OP (and the article I linked to) is people being incarcerated for the simple fact that they don't have the means to pay fines for simple offenses and court fees accrued due to those cases. People are being locked up just because they are poor. In all fairness I did move the discussion a little further to include all victimless crimes as Paxaeon defined better than I did. There have been cases where someone is jailed for a short period of time for a couple hundred dollar fine and when they get out they are presented a bill for food, etc. that they accrued while in jail. Guess what? they can't pay that either so back to jail they go. Does this sound like the right thing to do to you? According to the ACLU America has 5% of the worlds population and 25% of the worlds prisoners. How's it feel to be on a list with the likes of N Korea?

Wrong, they are being locked up because they habitually ignore laws and throw away parking tickets.
 
Wrong, they are being locked up because they habitually ignore laws and throw away parking tickets.

You can keep repeating that all you want. it won't make you right.
 
You can keep repeating that all you want. it won't make you right.

OK I guess you are right and I am wrong. On the arrest warrant it clearly says they have violated the being poor law.:roll:
 
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