April 24, 2024 – No one should be put in prison solely because they are unable to pay court-imposed debt. On April 24, we submitted public comments urging the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Criminal Procedure Rules Committee to ensure that the Committee’s proposed revisions to the Pennsylvania Rules of Criminal Procedure protect low-income defendants who default on their fines, fees, or restitution payments. As we write, the rules should be revised to “help ensure defendants living in poverty are not punished for being poor, in violation of their constitutional rights.”

Read our comment in full here.

Over 40 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Bearden v. Georgia that defendants who fail to pay debts related to their criminal cases cannot be jailed for this non-payment unless a court finds that the defendant “has willfully refused to pay the fine or restitution when he has the means to pay.” Pennsylvania courts have repeatedly affirmed this principle and held that certain procedural safeguards must be put in place when a defendant is found in default of payment.

“We hope that the Committee will consider the proposed revisions to Rule 706 to safeguard important constitutional rights of low-income defendants, and to help ‘remind the lower court[s] that in Pennsylvania, we do not imprison the poor solely for their inability to pay fines.’ Commonwealth v. Eggers, 742 A.2d at 176”

But as we explain in our comments, “judges are not always aware of the legal safeguards that are required when a defendant is in default,” and the proposed revisions to the Criminal Rules do not expressly and affirmatively codify these constitutional protections..

We ask the Rules Committee to consider three amendments to Rule 706–which governs the default of payment of fines, fees and restitution–to make these protections clear:

• Require the court in every default hearing to conduct an inquiry into the reasons for a defendant’s failure to pay, considering “the totality of the defendant’s life circumstances” and the defendant’s good faith efforts to secure funds.
• Prohibit the court from imprisoning a defendant for nonpayment unless the Commonwealth is able to prove that the defendant has willfully refused to pay.
• Specify that defendants have a right to legal counsel before being sentenced to imprisonment or probation.

“We hope that the Committee will consider the proposed revisions to Rule 706 to safeguard important constitutional rights of low-income defendants,” we write, “and to help [quoting the PA case Commonwealth v. Eggers] ‘remind the lower court[s] that in Pennsylvania, we do not imprison the poor solely for their inability to pay fines.'”