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Features and Stories
Features and Stories
Brian Howell, an unemployed man whose leg was amputated following a car accident, was assessed over $1,000 in court fines for three traffic violations in the city of Corinth, Mississippi.
Features and Stories
Mississippi will reinstate more than 100,000 driver’s licenses that were suspended for non-payment of traffic tickets and will no longer suspend licenses for failure to pay fines, under an agreement that was announced today between the SPLC, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety (DPS) and another organization.
Features and Stories
The city of Corinth, Mississippi and Municipal Court Judge John C. Ross are operating a modern-day debtors’ prison, unlawfully jailing poor people for their inability to pay bail and fines, according to a federal class-action lawsuit filed by the SPLC and another civil rights group.
Features and Stories
Under a settlement with the SPLC, the city court in Bogalusa, Louisiana, will stop jailing indigent defendants for failing to pay court debt – one of several reforms designed to ensure fairness for all people appearing before the court.
Features and Stories
Louisiana’s Bogalusa City Court has agreed to issue $50 refunds to settle part of a federal lawsuit that describes how the court and a city judge operated a modern-day debtors’ prison by illegally jailing indigent people too poor to pay fines and court costs, the Southern Poverty Law Center announced today.
Features and Stories
The SPLC has reached a settlement with Alexander City, Alabama, and its police chief to resolve a federal class action lawsuit over the operation of a modern-day debtors’ prison in which people were jailed for being too poor to pay fines and court fees for traffic tickets and misdemeanors.
Features and Stories
A city ordinance that criminalized the failure to pay a water bill was repealed by the city council in the town of Chickasaw, Alabama, last night in response to a Southern Poverty Law Center letter advising the city’s municipal judge that the ordinance is unconstitutional.
Features and Stories
A city judge in Bogalusa, La., has agreed to temporarily stop jailing indigent people who can’t pay fines or court costs and to stop collecting extension fees and court costs that fund his court, according to a joint agreement filed today in federal court.
