Ripples of Hope
Our team lost at trial in our class-action lawsuit challenging pretrial fees in Ravalli County, Montana. It’s a sentence I hoped I would never write, and one that, as trial prep and trial commenced throughout the last few months, I firmly believed I’d never have to. What began as a lawsuit with a handful of named plaintiffs back in August of 2021 evolved over the course of nearly five years into something bigger than our individual plaintiffs, bigger than Equal Justice Under Law, and bigger than Ravalli County.
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Equal Justice Under Law Heads to Trial in Montana Lawsuit Challenging Abusive Pre-Trial Fees
On March 9th, Equal Justice Under Law will be going to trial in the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana challenging Ravalli County, Montana’s unconstitutional pretrial supervision fees. We initially filed a lawsuit against Ravalli County, Montana on behalf of a plaintiffs’ class of indigent arrestees, challenging their “Jail Diversion Program,” a division of the County’s Sheriff’s Office. After surviving a motion to dismiss, a judge largely denied the County’s motion for summary judgment, finding material disputes of fact on five of the plaintiffs’ counts. After more than four years of litigation, the case is going to trial to determine whether Ravalli County violated due process or falsely imprisoned indigent individuals in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and Montana state law.
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The Untold Costs of Booking Fees
Equal Justice Under Law has recently entered the fight against booking fees. On January 22, 2026, we filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin challenging the constitutionality of the booking fees imposed by Jefferson County, Wisconsin. There, county officials impose a booking fee of nearly $30 on those arrested on suspicion of violating their parole. Those arrested on suspicion of committing a non-parole-related offense are not charged a booking fee. These fees are imposed irrespective of ability to pay, prior to any opportunity to be heard in court, and are not refunded if the charges are dropped or the arrestee is later adjudicated not guilty.
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Bail Is a Process, Not an Outcome
Last month’s executive orders perpetuate confusion about bail that serves nobody. They claim to be premised on a concern for public safety, but they do not connect the dots because they fail to realize that cash bail is a process, not an outcome.
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Executive Orders to End Cashless Bail Are Misguided and Serve to Criminalize Poverty
At their core, these newest executive orders are thinly-veiled attempts to criminalize poverty, and the fallout will be felt hardest by communities of color. The Constitutional promise of equal justice under the law is clear, and there can be no equal justice when people’s ability to access pretrial freedom depends on the depth of their pockets.
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Presidential Takeover of D.C. is Unlawful and Unjust
On August 11, 2025, President Donald Trump asserted statutory authority to take over the District of Columbia’s police force, send in National Guard troops, and broadly govern D.C. Since then, six states have sent in their National Guard. Though done to make D.C. “safe and beautiful,” it violates D.C. residents’ views on beauty and safety and, even to the extent D.C. self-government is disregarded for the sake of non-residents’ opinions, it is unconstitutional and ineffective.
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Lawsuit Filed to End Foster Care Fees in Georgia
Today, Equal Justice Under Law filed a Complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia challenging the state’s unconstitutional foster care fees scheme that charges exorbitant and arbitrary fees to parents living in poverty whose children are in foster care. The lawsuit alleges that Georgia’s Division of Family and Children Services (DFCS) removed children from more than 700 families between 2018 and 2022 solely for reasons of poverty, and then turned around and charged parents of those same families unaffordable monthly child support amounts which served to further delay or altogether prevent family reunification.
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New Executive Order Will Not End Homelessness in D.C.
The Order took direct aim at unhoused populations on federal land in the District, empowering the Secretary of the Interior to “issue a directive to the National Park Service requiring prompt removal and cleanup of all homeless or vagrant encampments . . . to the maximum extent permitted by law.”
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Appeal Filed in Case Against Missouri Family Support Division
Last month, Equal Justice Under Law filed an appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in an effort to keep our lawsuit challenging wealth-based driver’s license suspensions alive.
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“You’re On Your Own Kid”: State Police Sweep New Orleans Homeless Encampments
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell spoke publicly in June about making the city the safest it’s ever been in preparation for the Eras Tour and Super Bowl LIX. We have now seen that this “safety” is at the expense of the city’s most vulnerable populations.
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Harris County, Texas and Abolishing Modern-Day Debtors' Prisons
Last month, Judge Steven Duble in Harris County, Texas recalled all 12,500 arrest warrants issued by his court for people charged with non-jailable class C misdemeanors. He had “serious constitutional concerns as to whether we’ve done our ability-to-pay analysis," and recalled them instead of continuing to rubberstamp warrants that unconstitutionally criminalize poverty.
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Johnson v. Grants Pass: Incarceration Will Not Solve Our Homelessness Crisis
Today, the Supreme Court released its opinion in Johnson v. Grants Pass, a case presenting the question of whether a law criminalizing sleeping outdoors is a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment when no alternative shelter exists. The Court ruled that the city of Grants Pass has the right to jail unhoused residents solely for the “crime” of sleeping outdoors.
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Plaintiffs Await Summary Judgment Decision in Lawsuit Challenging Abusive Pre-Trial Fees
In September of 2021, Equal Justice Under Law filed a lawsuit against Ravalli County, Montana, challenging the County’s “Jail Diversion Program.” The picture Equal Justice Under Law uncovered through litigation was even bleaker than the one painted in the amended complaint.
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Housing Not Handcuffs: The Criminalization of Homelessness
Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Johnson v. Grants Pass, a case that asks whether it violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment to criminalize sleeping outside in jurisdictions where no alternative shelter is available.
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Celebrating 10 Years Fighting for Equal Justice
Thanks to our supporters, Equal Justice Under Law celebrated its 10-year anniversary on March 24, 2024! This work would not be possible without the dedication of donors who agree that wealth-based discrimination undermines the foundation of our justice system.
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