Fowler v. Johnson
Plaintiffs allege that the Michigan Department of State’s automatic suspension of driver’s license of persons who owe court fines and fees, regardless of their ability to pay violates due process and equal protection.
Ability to Pay
San Francisco Fines & Fees Task Force: Initial Findings and Recommendations
In late 2016, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors directed the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector to create a Fines and Fees Task Force (staffed by the Treasurer’s Financial Justice Project) to study the impact of fines and fees on San Franciscans & propose relevant reforms. About six months later, the Task Force published this initial report in order to provide an overview of fines and fees in San Francisco as well as an array of reform recommendations.
Criminal Justice Debt Reform Builder
The Criminal Justice Debt Reform Builder is an online tool that allows users to quickly explore and assess fines and fees reform statutes in all 50 states.
Arizona HB 2313: Sentencing; monetary obligations; fine mitigation
This bill makes several changes to the way Arizona courts impose and enforce fines and fees. In particular, it increases judges’ power to reduce fines and fees if a defendant is unable to pay and slightly reduces certain state surcharges.
Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal Justice System
This review of law and policy is the first-year report of a five-year study comprising quantitative and qualitative research that provides a detailed understanding of how fines and fees are imposed and enforced across the United States.
Louisiana House Bill 249: Payment of fines, fees, costs, restitution, and other monetary obligations related to an offender’s conviction
Louisiana House Bill 249 protects people convicted of a felony and their dependents from facing undue hardship because of fines and fees.
Juvenile Justice Research to Policy and the Case of Fines
This study analyzes data from more than 1,000 justice-involved youth in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in order to answer two questions: (1) how do demographics and case characteristics correlate with imposition of fines and fees, and (2) how do fines and fees correlate with recidivism rates?
$23,000 in traffic fines reduced to $9 for man as pilot program takes on New Orleans’ court system
In March 2017, New Orleans nonprofit Stand with Dignity sponsored a Warrant Clinic in New Orleans. Over 1,200 people (who owed an average of $8,000 in fines and fees) participated in the clinic.
Ending the Debt Trap: Strategies to Stop the Abuse of Court-Imposed Fines and Fees
Alexandra Bastien of PolicyLink describes how the imposition of criminal justice fines and fees disproportionately impacts people of color and low-income Americans.
California SB 185: Crimes: infractions.
This bill would have ended the practice of suspending licenses as a sanction for nonpayment of fines and fees. It also mandated that judges reduce fines and fees and provided guidelines for determining a defendant’s ability to pay fines and fees.