Should a state government be able to make non-payment of a debt a crime? That question was argued before the Supreme Court of New Hampshire last week. The American Civil Liberties Union is defending an individual who did not pay $453 in fees after having a public defender represent him in a criminal trial and the state’s Office of Cost Containment went after him for the debt.
The man, John Brawley, was arrested after not showing up in court for a hearing. Bail was set at $50. When the bail was paid, that knocked the amount owing down to $403, but Brawley did not make any other payments on the debt. That led the Office of Cost Containment to try and have Brawley jailed until the full amount was repaid.
A Superior Court judge ruled that the debt was a civil issue denied the OCC’s request to put Brawley behind bars. The state appealed the decision to the state Supreme Court, which heard arguments from both sides last Thursday, according to a published report.
The sheer number of cases in which a public defender is required because the defendant lacks the funds to pay for a lawyer necessitates treating the debts differently than a traditional unpaid bill, the state argued.
“The state is constitutionally obligated to provide counsel to indigent criminal defendants, which results in a significant burden on public revenues,” said Laura Lombardi, a senior assistant attorney general with the state. “If the defendants have the ability to pay, they should not be receiving a free ride on the backs of the taxpayer. It’s entirely appropriate that there should be a process for the state to recover this money on behalf of the taxpayers … There is a rational basis to treat these cases differently from civil cases.”
While agreeing there should be a process for collecting the debts, Albert Scherr, a law professor at the University of New Hampshire who represented the ACLU, argued that the state should never be allowed to resort to treating an unpaid debt as a crime.
