Changes ordered by the Mississippi Supreme Court intended to help poor residents are changing the way municipal courts around the state are operating, and Columbia is no different.
“You may see that collections of fines are down slightly,” Judge Donovan McComb told aldermen Sept. 5. “I as a judge have to be careful. I’m not a debt collector. I’m not in the business of trying to make money. I simply look at cases as they come in front of me and make a determination as to whether someone is guilty or not. You have personnel over there that once the fine is established, you are trying to collect the money.”
On July 1, new procedural rules set by the state’s high court took effect, and at the same time, there have been lawsuits settled against larger cities alleging they jailed people to collect fines.
Among the changes is an initial appearance before a judge now must occur within 48 hours of an arrest, and the rules create “unsecured appearance bonds” where people can bond out of jail without having collateral.
xxAnd perhaps most notably, if someone convicted of a crime does not pay their fine, the judge is to factor in their finances. If they can’t pay, then the judge cannot jail them.
“Our hands have been tied to some degree because of the changes because of changes in procedures and the way we collect debt,” McComb said. “Now, instead of just saying that someone owes us money and we will go be aggressive and do what we can to collect, we have to first make a determination as to whether that person can is indigent – whether they can afford to pay or not. If they cannot afford to pay it we do everything we can to not put them in jail. We settle for alternate methods of letting them pay it.”
In Columbia, those options include a city work program for working off fines and ankle monitors where the judge can order people to serve a sentence on house arrest.
“The city currently pays the county $30 per day to keep someone in jail,” he said. “If we use the house arrest program and use an ankle monitor, that cost is $10 per day. We don’t have a lot of inmates from the city, but you can see that if you’re looking at 10 people at $30 per day for 30 days, is a lot of money.”
McComb said he’s also setting up a third court date each month beginning in October for “show cause” hearings.
“We won’t have trials or pleas. It is for strictly those that we see owe money. Some of them may have old fines and some I may have ordered to pay $100 per month and they haven’t paid. Whatever the case is, we’ll bring them in and I’ll be able to have a hearing and make a determination as to what they can afford or not,” he said. “If they do not appear at that hearing, at that point, I can issue a warrant for failure to appear. It’s not a warrant for failure to pay; it’s a failure to appear at the direction of the court. At that point, we can bring them in because they have failed to follow a court order.”
McComb said those summoned to the show cause hearings will be able to discuss the fines with the judge.
“There may not be a whole lot we can do if they can’t afford it, other than if they can follow through on a city work crew or something like that,” he said. “If they are disabled or something like that, you can’t really put them on the work program.”
McComb said the current plan is to have the show cause hearings on a Wednesday because normal municipal court is held on Wednesdays.
“It will take a lot of time, but it’s hard to tell right now until we get caught up,” he said. “Let me tell you the magnitude of the issue we have over there. When we initially set these show cause hearings up, we’re holding it to 90 cases per day.”
McComb said some people don’t take the appearances seriously and that there are consequences for failure to appear, which include arrest.
“If they can’t appear, they need to notify the court,” he said. “Obviously, if you have an emergency appendectomy or something like that on that day, you can’t appear. I’ll remove that warrant in that case. We won’t charge that to them. There are some legitimate excuses. Until I find that out, there will still be a contempt fee added to whatever fine they had.”
McComb said the impact of the changes may not be immediate.
“Hopefully, in a couple of months you’ll see collections begin to go up,” he said. “Word gets around – when people know that you are serious and there are consequences if you fail to do what you’re supposed to do. It’s when there are no consequences that we have problems.”
