Celebrating Eight Years Challenging Wealth-Based Discrimination
On March 24, 2022, Equal Justice Under Law celebrates its eight-year anniversary of challenging wealth-based discrimination in the criminal justice system! Since our organization’s founding in 2014, we’ve filed 41 lawsuits in 17 states. We’ve brought about positive change to over three million people affected by our case victories or repeals in discriminatory laws as a result of our lawsuits.
The past year brought a new set of challenges. The Covid-19 pandemic continued to wreak havoc on court systems, slowing or completely halting progress on many cases as courts were closed or slow to reopen, with many months of backlogged cases. Economic uncertainty left charitable organizations likes ours hesitant to plan ahead or forge new projects. Despite these challenges, we accomplished the following highlights during the last year:
New Lawsuit Fighting Pre-Trial Supervision Fees: Last summer, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of hundreds of individuals being extorted money through pre-trial fees despite being legally innocent. In Ravalli County, Montana, pre-trial arrestees — who have not been found guilty of any crime — are required to pay pre-trial fees for things like supervision and electronic monitoring, often adding up to hundreds of dollars per month, without consideration of their ability to pay. If they fall behind on payments, they are threatened with jail. Individuals are billed for pre-trial supervision even if they cannot afford it. This case is currently ongoing.
New Lawsuit Targets Criminalization of Failure to Pay Rent: Arkansas is the only state that criminalizes failure to pay rent. Our lawsuit filed in the fall of 2021 aims to end this draconian law. In Arkansas, if a tenant falls behind on rent by just one day, for any reason, landlords are given the option of a criminal eviction, turning a civil debt into a criminal offense. For each day a tenant is late on rent, a tenant can be charged with a criminal offense and fined $25. There is no cap on how many criminal offenses or fines a tenant may face. In practice, landlords use this law to force tenants to self-evict. Sadly, this strategy is effective, as tenants will abandon their homes to avoid the possibility of criminal prosecution, even if they have legitimate reasons why rent is late or even if the landlord is lying about rent owed. If tenants go to court, they are not given an opportunity to explain, instead told to move out or go to jail for contempt of court. This case is currently ongoing.
Victory in Historic Money Bail Case Finalized: In January 2022, a historic victory ending cash bail in San Francisco was finalized when the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals confirmed our victory in the trial court and ordered fees paid by the state. The state had appealed the ruling, and after more than two years since we helped convince a federal district court to declare San Francisco’s money bail schedule unconstitutional, the appeals court affirmed our victory in a 29-page opinion. Now, individuals arrested in San Francisco are no longer assigned a price tag on their freedom. Our case put an end to San Francisco’s discriminatory and arbitrary bail schedule. More than two years after our victory in the district court, the appeals court issued a decision that Equal Justice Under Law and Latham & Watkins should be repaid in full for the costs and fees incurred in pursuing this case. The Ninth Circuit’s decision represents a broader milestone and precedent that will benefit future civil rights litigants. This is a hugely impactful issue for all organizations and plaintiffs who bring civil rights lawsuits against government entities, as the fee repayments serve as a financial lifeline for their work.
These highlights represent a peek into the changes we’ve accomplished together with your support over the last year. We thank you for your continued support to this critical mission, and we look forward to seeing what impact we will get to celebrate over the next year.