Daunte Wright wasn鈥檛 on the Missouri Supreme Court docket Tuesday morning, but he might as well have been.
Wright is the 20-year-old Black man after a traffic stop on Sunday in a Minneapolis suburb, just as the trial of a different white officer accused of killing George Floyd was nearing its end in another part of that city.
Wright鈥檚 death evokes a list of names that keeps getting longer, of Black men and women killed by police in questionable incidents: Floyd, Michael Brown, Alton Sterling, Breonna Taylor, Elijah McClain, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Philando Castile. To me, Wright鈥檚 death mostly evokes memories of Castile. Both died after traffic stops that were pretextual at best. Both owed the court money because of minor misdemeanor convictions, which had been at least one of the underlying causes of warrants issued at one time or another for their arrest.
People are also reading…
Between the ages of 19 and 32, when he died, Castile was pulled over by police . His fines and fees in those cases totaled more than $6,000.
Outstanding warrants weren鈥檛 the cause of Castile or Wright鈥檚 deaths, anymore than an air freshener hanging from a rearview mirror, but they are a piece of the over-policing pie that disproportionately affects people of color throughout this country.
Much of the nation was introduced to this long-standing problem of the American criminal justice system in the days after Brown鈥檚 death in Ferguson, which brought attention to the municipal schemes in north 50度灰视频 County, where Driving While Black was just a pretext to issue fines and fees .
That underlying issue, the proliferation of fines and fees in municipal courts, is what the Missouri Supreme Court was discussing Tuesday morning. The attorneys for Daven Fowler and Jerry Keller, two Kansas City-area men, were asking the court to declare unconstitutional a $3 fee attached to their court cases that pays for the retirement fund of mostly rural Missouri sheriffs who have nothing to do with the administration of justice in Kansas City.
A Toll on Justice: a Post-Dispatch special report
A five-part series examines how all three branches of Missouri government helped prop up the Sheriffs' Retirement Fund by charging a court fee聽that many judges and legal scholars find unconstitutional.聽
All three branches of Missouri government are involved in propping up sheriffs' pensions.
It's a battle that finds many municipal judges in direct conflict with the Missouri Supreme Court.
The original statute to create the revenue source for the sheriffs passed in 1983 and had been amended several times.
As long as they鈥檝e been elected, county sheriffs, particularly in rural America, have wielded the sort of influence that has other elected off…
St. Francois County judge enforces old child support case in which the father long ago died.聽
The fee has been the subject of legislative and judicial disputes almost since it passed, in 1983, in part because many municipal judges, led first by former Overland Judge Frank Vatterott, refused to charge the fee, saying it was a 鈥渟ale of justice鈥 in violation of the Missouri Constitution. That was the argument attorney Adam Davis made Tuesday to the judges.
When court costs are too high 鈥 and used to fund government functions outside the courts themselves 鈥 that creates a barrier to justice for people who can鈥檛 afford to make such payments, Davis argued. The Missouri Supreme Court already reached that opinion in the case Harrison v. Monroe County in 1986. Davis asked the court to apply the same philosophy to his case.
The attorney for the Missouri Sheriff鈥檚 Retirement Fund, Tim Sear, told the judges that he believes the Harrison case only applies to civil cases, when a plaintiff would have to pay court costs simply to file a petition. That spurred a question from Judge Patricia Breckenridge, whose husband, Bryan, happens to be one of the municipal judges who has refused to collect the $3 fee.
Breckenridge asked Davis what happens after a fee is imposed in a criminal case, such as after a traffic ticket, if it isn鈥檛 paid?
Warrants happen, Davis said.
He didn鈥檛 mention Daunte Wright or Philando Castile, but he didn鈥檛 have to. The judges of the Missouri Supreme Court are familiar with what happens to poor people in Missouri who can鈥檛 afford to pay various costs imposed upon them by the court. Warrants are issued. They are arrested, perhaps after a traffic stop. They are hauled before the judge again and threatened with jail if they can鈥檛 pay.
Just two years ago, the court ruled unanimously that such a scheme is illegal in the case of jail 鈥渂oard bills,鈥 those charges for time behind bars that are imposed in most rural counties in the state. This case is based on a different statute, but the same concept:
At what point will the courts, in Missouri, Minnesota, or elsewhere, stop allowing themselves to be used as back-door tax collectors for different branches of government?
Jailed for being poor is Missouri epidemic: A series of columns from Tony Messenger
Tony Messenger has written about Missouri cases where people were charged for their time in jail or on probation, then owe more money than their fines or court costs.聽
The Pulitzer Prize board considered these columns when it decided to award the prize for commentary to metro columnist Tony Messenger.聽
In a twist of irony, one judge no longer calls them 鈥減ayment review hearings.鈥 Instead, he鈥檚 even more direct. Now they are called 鈥渄ebt colle…
鈥淭he jail is emptying out. People that do come in are able to bond out quickly. None of the girls here are being held for financial reasons. T…
In a case of civil contempt 鈥 such as when a judge jails a reporter for not revealing a source, or an attorney for failing to follow an order …
Even with the state鈥檚 top court making progress in eradicating the practice of putting people in jail because they can鈥檛 afford to be in jail,…
鈥淭here are a pile of cases where people owe us money,鈥 the judge told the defendant, a painter, who said he was having a hard time finding wor…
No longer, the court said in one voice, can judges in Missouri threaten indigent defendants with jail time for their inability to be able to a…
Disparate treatment of people charged with crimes offers a glimpse into a fundamental problem in the application of criminal justice in Missou…
Weiss wants the Legislature to make it illegal for counties to charge defendants for their time behind bars.
鈥淗ow can they cancel a court date then issue a warrant without even telling you the new court date?鈥 Sharp wonders.
His bill would stop the practice in Missouri of state police agencies avoiding state jurisdiction by seeking asset forfeiture under guise of f…
"He sat in jail because he was poor," public defender Matthew Mueller聽said of his client.
The two defendants are Exhibits A and B of why Missouri has become the front line in a national war on poverty and the courts.
She knows what she did was wrong. She knows she should have been punished.
鈥淚t's been a hard road,鈥 she told me recently. 鈥淩eally hard.鈥
For decades, Missouri鈥檚 corrections budget has been rising. So has its prison population, with a 鈥渢ough on crime鈥 philosophy filling prisons w…
鈥淲e鈥檙e hamstringing the very people who we want to go out and get a job,鈥 Lummus says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 self-defeating.鈥
In his regular appearance on the McGraw Milhaven show on KTRS radio, Metro columnist Tony Messenger discusses his ongoing debtors' prison series.
He did his time. Then he got the bill: $3,150 for his stay behind bars.
A year-end update on some of the cases Tony Messenger wrote about during 2018.
The primary difference between the poor people who have been 鈥渢errorized鈥 in Edmundson or Jennings or Ferguson, compared with those in Salem a…
The Court of Appeals in the Western District of Missouri determined that the practice of using the courts to try to collect board bills is ill…
Some counties in Missouri don't charge board bills. Those include聽the most urban counties in the state: both the city and county of 50度灰视频,…
I did my time and then some. This is how they get people. They keep them on probation and then if they don't pay their board bill they violate…
By 2009, Rapp was behind in her payments and the court revoked her probation. She did a couple of days in jail and her cash bond of $400 was a…
Every week in Missouri, a judge somewhere holds a crowded docket to collect room and board from people who were recently in jail. The judges c…
鈥淚 don鈥檛 see why he has to keep going to court every month,鈥 she says. Sharon uses her Social Security income to try to keep him out of jail. …
Because Precious Jones was late to jail, prosecutor and judge seek to add to her sentence.
The Missouri Supreme Court and Missouri Legislature should revisit their 2015 and 2016 efforts to reform courts. More work is necessary.
Other than now being required to meet federal standards for that drug testing, private probation companies face nearly no oversight in Missour…
鈥淚 messed up on probation,鈥 he says. 鈥淚t was my fault.鈥 Still, he doesn鈥檛 think it makes sense that he鈥檚 still hauled to court once a month wi…
Murr owed Dent County about $4,000 for her 鈥渂oard bill鈥 for the 95 days she had been jailed.
The domestic violence victim, Gaddis says, wouldn鈥檛 make a report to police because she feared going to jail herself and losing her child.聽
鈥淭hey make you jump through hoops,鈥 Bote says, 鈥渁nd then they keep moving the hoops higher.鈥
William Everts stole from a church. Almost immediately, he knew it was a bad idea.
Bergen has the sort of back story that would inspire one of the movies or television episodes based in the Ozarks that seem to be all the rage…
Clark ended up spending 495 days in county jail awaiting a trial that still hasn鈥檛 come.
Pritchett first called me last year, after I wrote about a St. Francois County woman who was sent to prison for failing to pay court costs. He…
Rob Hopple had been in jail since May after falling behind on payments on an ankle bracelet. Court dates kept coming and going, with the prose…
The bills are that high because the two criminal defendants couldn鈥檛 afford to pay for an initial sentence behind bars for relatively minor of…
鈥淭he practical reality is that people are being arrested for being poor,鈥 Mueller says. 鈥淎nd there鈥檚 nothing they can do about it. They just s…
At least twice in recent years, the Missouri Supreme Court has overturned harsh sentences issued by a judge after she sent people to prison so…
Branson, in early 2018, was in Desloge, Mo., now, living with her 15-year-old son, checking in with her parole officer, hoping never to go bac…
Officially, Victoria Branson鈥檚 probation was revoked because she never paid the state the past due support and the court costs, which rang up …