The Michigan Supreme Court has agreed to look again at a law that allows communities to collect millions of dollars from criminal defendants below the poverty line that go towards paying prosecutor’s salaries, as well as janitorial services at the courthouse.
The issue is whether it’s unconstitutional, especially when a judge knows a conviction will bring in cash and please local officials who count on that money to ease budget pressures.
The Supreme Court issued an order Wednesday, saying it would hear arguments in a case from Alpena County. Travis Johnson was ordered to pay $1,200 in local court costs for a pair of convictions. A bill he cannot afford.
The court especially wants to hear whether the law “deprives criminal defendants of their right to appear before an impartial judge.”
A judge can order people convicted of crimes to pay a portion of a court’s operating costs, such as salaries, utilities and other services. But, someone who is acquitted doesn’t get a bill for overhead, nor do parties in a civil lawsuit. If prosecutors lose a case, money isn’t deducted from their budget.
What is most eye-opening to those in favor of changing the policy--From 2016 through 2019, courts collected $172 million, and nearly 75% of it in District Courts, which handle traffic tickets, drunken driving cases and other misdemeanors mostly committed by people who can least afford it.
