Courting Justice

The “Tavis Smiley Show” featured Ohio judges as part of series called “Courting Justice,” a multi-city town hall co-hosted by Smiley’s show and the National Center for State Courts. Panelists (pictured above, left to right) were Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, Judge Ronald B. Adrine, Judge Patrick Carroll, and former Justice Yvette McGee Brown.

The three-part show in Ohio was recorded before a live audience in Cleveland in December 2016. Two episodes aired on television, and the third was archived on the Tavis Smiley Show website. All are available through the links below:

PART 1, broadcast Dec. 13

PART 2, broadcast Dec. 14

PART 3, Web-only extra segment

Courting Justice

The “Tavis Smiley Show” featured Ohio judges as part of series called “Courting Justice,” a multi-city town hall co-hosted by Smiley’s show and the National Center for State Courts. Panelists (pictured above, left to right) were Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, Judge Ronald B. Adrine, Judge Patrick Carroll, and former Justice Yvette McGee Brown.

The three-part show in Ohio was recorded before a live audience in Cleveland in December 2016. Two episodes aired on television, and the third was archived on the Tavis Smiley Show website. All are available through the links below:

PART 1, broadcast Dec. 13

PART 2, broadcast Dec. 14

PART 3, Web-only extra segment

The 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, led the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate other practices of law enforcement and courts in the St. Louis neighborhood. The department’s scathing report, issued in March 2015, revealed that local courts were imposing fines and fees on people arrested for minor offenses, and boosting the prices for those charges over the years to generate revenue for city coffers. The report helped propel into the national spotlight the issue of burdensome court costs heaped on many who can least afford it, shining a brighter light on the economics of justice in the United States.

Last month, national talk show host Tavis Smiley devoted two episodes of his public television show to the topic of fines, fees, and bail with an Ohio panel comprised of the state’s chief justice, a former justice, and two municipal court judges. Smiley asked the panel whether people of color and poor people are disproportionately punished by fines, fees, and bail as they’re currently being assessed by courts.

“I think there’s no question that is what’s occurring,” Ohio Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor responded. “The courts [in Ferguson] were literally an ATM for the municipalities, at the direction of the governance of the municipality instructing police in concert with the courts to raise revenue.”

A National Topic
Chief Justice O’Connor explained, though, that the problem extends beyond Ferguson to the nation. The Buckeye State itself has grappled with the issue. An April 2013 report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio identified seven counties that jailed people who couldn’t pay court fines. In response, the Ohio Supreme Court developed a bench card, released in early 2014, citing the laws that govern how courts must handle the imposition and collection of court costs and fines, and offering guidance to local courts in appropriate approaches.

Willing to face the challenges and concerns head on, Chief Justice O’Connor now leads a national effort to address the matter as co-chair of the National Task Force on Fines, Fees, and Bail Practices.

Cycle of Incarceration
Once certain fines or fees are imposed, people who come into contact with the courts often find themselves caught in a maddening revolving door with the system.

“The reality is, if you’re sitting on the bench, you may think $100 fine is no big deal because you’re not that $7-an-hour worker where a $100 fine is extraordinary,” former Justice Yvette McGee Brown, one of the panelists, said. “So then they can’t pay the fine, they get a warrant issued for them, they lose their job.”

The effect on an individual can be devastating. Many courts have imposed fines, which are financial punishments for certain offenses, and fees, which are payments assessed for court operations, without considering whether the offender has the resources to pay. The debt pushes some offenders to choose between a court obligation and needed purchases for themselves and their families. Numerous offenders who haven’t paid fines and fees have been arrested and jailed.

Advocates, researchers, and court officials are questioning what purpose is served by jailing people who don’t have the money to pay and who pose little danger to the community.

“The jail is a scarce resource,” panelist and Lakewood Municipal Court Judge Patrick Carroll pointed out. “You want to keep it for repeat offenders, violent offenders, people that can affect the safety of the community …. It’s not a collection agency for fines.”

The courts [in Ferguson] were literally an ATM for the municipalities, at the direction of the governance of the municipality instructing police in concert with the courts to raise revenue."
- Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor

The courts [in Ferguson] were literally an ATM for the municipalities, at the direction of the governance of the municipality instructing police in concert with the courts to raise revenue."
- Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor

Lives in Turmoil
Incarceration, even for a few days, can jeopardize many other aspects of a person’s life, such as keeping a job and maintaining custody of children.

“If you look at it from any objective standard, you come to the conclusion that for people who are low income, low risk, that those people are absolutely being preyed upon,” Cleveland Municipal Court Judge Ronald B. Adrine told the Tavis Smiley show audience. “Once they fall into that crack, we kind of compile additional problems on top of them so that they don’t get an opportunity to ever climb back out of the hole.”

“Many times, the government doesn’t actually collect the fines because the people can’t pay them,” Judge Carroll added. “Nonetheless, those fines … keep piling up and piling up, and now somebody can’t get a driver’s license.”

Burdens of Bail
Holding defendants before trial because they can’t make bail raises the same concerns. Courts set bail to ensure that a person appears for a future proceeding or to protect the public. However, more and more people are being held in jail because they can’t pay a bail bond. A 2015 report by the Council of Economic Advisers noted a 59 percent escalation nationwide in the number of arrested individuals held in jail without a conviction between 1996 and 2014. Municipal courts often set rigid bail schedules, too. The schedules define specific bail amounts based only on the level of misdemeanor or felony.

“Bail schedules are one of the most unjust ways of treating an individual coming before the court,” Chief Justice O’Connor said.

Judge Adrine added: “When you set them arbitrarily – where you just set up the dollar amount according to the charge as opposed to the individual and what that individual’s risk factors are – then somebody who has no money, but also poses no risk, ends up staying in jail while somebody who has a lot of money is able to get out.”

As a result, Judge Adrine has made some dramatic changes at the Cleveland Municipal Court. Now a person charged with a nonviolent misdemeanor who has no other charges pending can be released on his or her own signature. Judge Adrine and his colleagues are also taking steps to develop better risk-assessment tools to make more suitable judgments about bail for serious charges.

“Judges need discretion to fashion a remedy for the person standing in front of them,” McGee Brown said.

Adequate Funding Needed
But fundamental fairness in the court system also will require greater financial investment.

“You cannot have justice in an under-funded system such as we have in many, many instances,” Chief Justice O’Connor stressed. “Because you do have the overburdened public defender. You do have the prosecutor that is moving cases along according to a formula all too often. You’ve got a judge who is watching the clock and determining, ‘How many cases do I have yet to hear in this morning’s session?’”

To tackle the problem, the national task force aspires to provide practical resources – including draft model statutes, court rules, and policies for setting, collecting, and waiving fines, fees, and bail – to lessen any unfair burdens placed on people who find themselves navigating the court system.

“This is truly a paradigm shift in many respects with how business is done in our courts, and that requires education and training and consistency,” the chief justice said. “Those are the hallmarks of a successful change.”

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