Justice Dept. Suing Ferguson Over Failure To Make Changes

February 11, 2016 By
Photo of Michael Brown Sr., right, at a City Council meeting in Ferguson, Mo., from a New York Times report, 2/10/16, "Department of Justice Sues Ferguson, Which Reversed Course on Agreement"

Photo of Michael Brown Sr., right, at a City Council meeting in Ferguson, Mo., from a New York Times report, 2/10/16, “Department of Justice Sues Ferguson, Which Reversed Course on Agreement”

The U.S. Justice Department is suing the town of Ferguson over its refusal to make changes in how its police and justice system operates. Ferguson, of course, is the St. Louis suburb that been the focus of a national protest over police behavior since 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed in a police shooting there is 2014. Among other problems, the city’s court system was an example of how “civil” infractions like traffic tickets could become criminal charges if court dates, fines or other procedural milestones were missed. A federal report found that the police were acting more or less as a profit-generating system for the town’s budget.

 

Read about the lawsuit in a very solid New York Times story.
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Texas To Rule On Civil Fees Issue

October 13, 2015 By
The Texas Supreme Court is expected to hear a case this week that might clarify when local courts can force poor plaintiffs to pay fees. The Texas Tribune news website explains that”… in 2012, six plaintiffs from Tarrant County sued the local district court clerk for charging them court fees even after they filed affidavits of their indigent status — also known as ‘pauper petitions’ — when they filed for divorce. But the clerk says final divorce decrees require that each party pay its share of the court costs.” 
 
The Tribune report also placed the issue in some context: “… court costs and fines surfaced as one of the more pressing criminal justice issues in the aftermath of the police shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014. While a grand jury cleared the officer, Darren Wilson, of criminal wrongdoing, a subsequent U.S. Department of Justice report revealed how the police department in Ferguson wrote more tickets for mostly poor African Americans than any other ethnic group. Following the shooting of Brown, federal investigators found that Ferguson relied on municipal ticketing and fines as a revenue generator for the city’s budget.”
 
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