“When poor defendants appeared in court over an unpaid fine, the ACLU found that judges did not assign them a lawyer, seek to determine whether they could afford their fine or inform them of their rights.
“”Judges simply put them in jail,” the report states.
“One transcript indicates that a hearing over a criminal trespass case started at 11:12 a.m. and was over by 11:13 a.m.
“In less than 90 seconds, according to the report, the judge accepted the defendant’s plea to what amounted to a traffic ticket, fined him $100 plus an additional court fee, and sent him to jail to pay off the fine.
“While people serve off their fines at a rate of $50 per day, it actually costs more than twice that much — around $110 per day — to lock them up behind bars, the report notes.”
Read more at Huffington Post
