Letter to the Editor: Legislation would change fine process unfair to the poor

Have you ever heard the phrase “in the clink”? You might think that the word refers to the slamming of a prison door, but that is a remarkable coincidence. The Clink was also the proper name of an actual debtors’ prison in the United Kingdom for 600 years — from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution.

Back then, if someone could not pay his/her debts, serving time in the Clink was the punishment. With our current bankruptcy laws, it might seem unimaginable today that serving time in a “debtors’ prison” would be possible. But it’s not!

In Delaware, the inability to pay court-ordered fines and fees — for even minor motor vehicle violations — can land you in Delaware’s version of the Clink. How is this possible in the 21st century?

I was a victim of this injustice. My driver’s license was suspended as a result of my inability to pay fines and fees, and I drove with a suspended license to get to parole hearings.

This predicament is a legal oxymoron. Why are laws on the books that punish someone for being poor and that then take away one’s driver’s license, which is necessary to get to work?

There is a solution: Delaware House Bill 244, introduced in June. The primary sponsor is Rep. Sean Lynn, D-Dover. Additional sponsors are Sen. Darius Brown, D-Wilmington, and Rep. Valerie Longhurst, D-Bear, and the co-sponsors are Sens. Kyle Evans Gay, D-Talleyville; S. Elizabeth Lockman, D-Wilmington; Sarah McBride, D-Wilmington; Dave Sokola, D-Newark; and Laura Sturgeon, D-Woodbrook, as well as Reps. Paul Baumbach, D-Newark; Gerald Brady, D-Wilmington; Nnamdi Chukwuocha, D-Wilmington; Eric Morrison, D-Glasgow; and Madinah Wilson-Anton, D-Newark. I want to thank them for sponsoring HB 244, which would accomplish the following, distilled from the bill synopsis:

• Prohibits a court from imposing a fine, fee, cost or assessment on children.
• Provides the courts the discretion to waive, modify or suspend any fine, fee, cost or assessment.
• Prohibits a court or the Department of Transportation from suspending a driver’s license for nonpayment of a fine and fees.
• Prohibits a court from imposing an additional fee on a defendant for payments that are made at designated periodic intervals or late or when probation is ordered to supervise a defendant’s payment.
• Requires the judiciary and the Delaware Criminal Justice Information System to publicly report the sum collected from fines, fees, costs, assessments and restitution.
• Eliminates the public defender fee and the probation supervision fee.
• Creates the Criminal Legal System Imposed Debt Study Group to review the impact of court-imposed financial obligations.
• Make recommendations to promote access, fairness and transparency in the imposition and collection of court-imposed financial obligations.

Passage of HB 244 would help those who are vulnerable to a legal system that now harms the poor.

D. Marque Hall

Wilmington