Originally published at: Innocent man billed $4,000 for jail stay | Boing Boing
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If you haven’t read it, Just Mercy is a good account of how bad local justice systems can be. There’s other reading out there too. A google search for “Alamaba speed trap” makes depressing reading akin to the civil asset forfeiture link in the OP. There was also a really good piece somewhere in recent years about how people in Alabama can get cited for a broken tail light and end up going bankrupt or going to prison for debts accrued from fines, jail fees, etc. If my brain coughs up enough to get a link to it, I’ll come back and post it.
I’m referencing Alabama, but a surprisingly large amount of the US is already somewhat like Alabama or is intensely Alabama-aspirational.
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The could take a hint from China: next time a cop shoots someone, send a bill for the bullet to the family.
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Let’s not forget other greatest hits, such as innocent people having their doors broken down, houses shot up, then having to foot the bill for repairs:
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Paying for being kept in jail or prison (innocent or not) is so crazy I wasn’t aware it was a thing. Apparently it’s called Pay-to-stay.
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The attorney for Clark County, Jeffrey Mando, said the jail doesn’t decide who is booked or who is guilty, but it needs money to continue housing inmates
Not my problem, Jack. That is what taxes are for. Raise property taxes for it or something.
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The $4,000 dollar bill is an obscene insult, but it seems secondary here. He had 14 months of his life taken without being convicted of anything. How is that not a blatant violation of constitutional rights?
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Worst B&B ever.
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Until they change their minds at least. (which, strangely, will happen as soon as people stop looking at the case)
Otherwise they wouldn’t have issued a bill to begin with. And stolen $256.
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Along with qualified immunity and “warrior training” and militarisation, one of a raft of garbage American policing practices that has to stop.
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“training” typo? if not, what’s warrior trading?
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judge was perfectly clear that the man needed to pay for services rendered - services he did not want, need or ask for. ok, fine. dude should start providing “services” to the jail and the judge. then, according to both of them, they should start paying.
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Fixed, although given the system where a rotten cop is fired and just takes a job in another jurisdiction’s police dept, it might as well be a thing.
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It’s a depressingly common and unethical American practice to charge people for their incarceration. Planet Money did a good story on it recently:
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"Dear Judge.
Since I am the prevailing party in this suit, I believe prosecutor should be on the hook for those fees as it was their efforts that caused those fees to be imposed in the first place upon the presumption of guilt that was refuted in your court room.
(I may leave off the following:
I am in talks with my ACLU attorney and the legal council at the Washing Post about recovering those fees. What are your preferred contact details that I should share with these people?)
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Yeah, uh, he should be getting paid here, and a little more than $4,000.
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This is such a deep offense against both the spirit and the letter of the Constitution as to enrage my normally calm self.
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Innocent or guilty, I think it is fucked up to bill someone for being in jail.
Making inmates pay for the prison is double punishment.
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This sucks. Here in Germany, if you’re wrongfully jailed, you get compensation. It won’t make you rich but at least you don’t get to pay for the privilege of doing time. (Then again, our prisons aren’t commercial businesses.)
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The American “justice system” is just a never-ending series of ways to fuck over poor people, isn’t it? Especially innocent poor people.
The attorney for Clark County, Jeffrey Mando, said the jail doesn’t decide who is booked or who is guilty, but it needs money to continue housing inmates.
I dunno, that sounds like a “you problem” there, Clark County jail.
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