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by lr4444lr
1445 days ago
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When the police start enforcing minor infractions, they get called out for bias too, because the fines and lost work hours to misdemeanor jail time hit the people in those communities "disproportionately". Then there is the revolving door issue we are seeing when DAs are soft on minor infractions, or law makers don't want to spend the money on them in the criminal justice system, so it doesn't make sense for the cops to go after lower level issues when they're budding. They can't win. |
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If you work a low-end shift job and miss a shift, you're likely to get fired almost immediately, or put on some sort of suspension, or otherwise punished via poor shift assignments and the like. At the very least, you lose income for the shift, and that is likely a substantial amount of money for you. The "court fee" is a substantial amount of money to you. You end up with a public defender who has little influence with the other officers of the court - the judge, the DA, etc. They have a docket a mile long for that day and needs to triage their time and resources, so they push you to plea out so they have time for the guy who is facing a felony or even capitol charge. If convicted your choices are jail or fines, and the fines might be days or weeks of pay you don't have.
If you work a professional job, you have "personal days" you can cash in, your employer provides you with things like free legal assistance via EAPs - or you probably already have established professional relationships with at least some sort of attorney, who you can afford, and who knows someone who knows the judges and DAs in the district you're going to be appearing in, and maybe the whole thing just goes away. The court fees are a rounding error in your weekly pay. And the laws are all "jail time or X dollar fine." So even if you're found guilty - the fine is a rounding error to you.