NAACP, human rights group sue Gulfport over poor defendants

[merh]

NAACP, human rights group sue Gulfport over poor defendants
Associated Press

GULFPORT, Miss. - The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and the Southern Center for Human Rights have sued the city of Gulfport, alleging its municipal court routinely incarcerated poor people unable to pay their fines and violated their right to counsel.

As a result of these practices, the Harrison County Jail has become a modern day debtors' prison, said Miriam Gohara, assistant counsel for the fund.

"We are very concerned that poor people with old fines for minor violations of the law, such as riding a bicycle without a light, are being jailed for their inability to pay, and worse yet they are not being provided with a lawyer before sentencing, in clear violation of the Constitution," she said.

City officials have denied the allegations.

http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/12198117.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

This is a common occurrence throughout Harrison County, Gulfport is not the only city that does this.

[genieroze]

1. This is a common occurrence in most municipal courts.

I have a police scanner and I frequently hear of them going after people for warrants for fifty bucks and arresting them. Then they get stuck with the jail bills and court costs and it ends up being a couple of hundred bucks. Then the cycle starts all over except the warrant is now a couple of hundred bucks. This is in a blue state.

[merh]

4. It happens all over the nation.

The poor don't know what their rights are, they can't afford an attorney and they can't pay the fines. So, what happens, they get tossed in jail for the "3 meals and a cot".

[VegasWolf]

2. A million bucks says these people are black. This is deep South. nt

[merh]

3. Actually, the common denominator is not race, it is class, as in

lower class. The poor who can't pay the fines, then get more fines for failure to pay the fines, can't afford and attorney and are thrown in jail without the benefit of a hearing to determine if they are indeed, incapable of paying the fines (indigent) and/or a hearing to provide them counsel to represent them at trial.

Yes, the majority are black, but the common thread is poor. :cry: