Debtors Being Arrested and Jailed

[harvey007]

You committed no crime, but an officer is knocking on your door. More Minnesotans are surprised to find themselves being locked up over debts.

http://www.startribune.com/investigators/95692619.html?page=1&c=y

[hobbit709]

1. Get the hell out of Minnesota.

[Randomthought]

4. the article mentions

several other states

[AndyA]

2. Land of Michelle Bachmann. What a surprise! (Not.)

Crazy legislators = crazy laws, enforcement, and violations of civil rights.

[FBI_Un_Sub]

3. Creditor lawyers

are being hauled before Disbarment Boards and also being sued by debtors.

The defense is to show that the "paperwork" is "defective" --- and it works. At least in CA and NY.

[RKP5637]

5. One more state to add to my list of those never to get near. Give this country

a few more years and this will seem very very mild. I've often said this country has the potential to become a police state with the right politicians and people think I'm foolish, but each day one can see one more transgression against fair, logical and intelligent civil rights.

[fasttense]

6. This practice is illegal in most states even Minnesota.

"Most state constitutions, including Minnesota's, have clauses dating to the 1850s that expressly prohibit the jailing of people for their debts. As legal actions against debtors intensify, attorneys are taking a fresh look at these clauses.

"We have created a de facto debtors prison system in the United States that is largely unconstitutional," said Judith Fox, a law professor at Notre Dame Law School. "In some parts of the country, people are so fearful of arrest they are scrambling to pay money they might not even owe."

In states such as Indiana and Illinois, people are being locked up for not making court-ordered payments. Known as "pay or stay," it can mean days in jail and multiple arrests for the same debt. Some legal experts say the practice is unconstitutional because the arrest is directly linked to the failure to pay a debt."

What they are doing is setting up debtor's prisons, even if they pretend otherwise. These people need to sue the courts and the debt collectors for wrongful imprisonment. What they are doing is illegal and they know it. But because they pick on poor people with no assets to fight back they get away with it.

Just the courts and collectors making a killing off of the most vulnerable people in our society. It is illegal.

[Stormy71]

12. Location?

Where exactly does it state this that it's unconstitutional? Thanks for the info!

[varkam]

13. Well, being arrested for failure to appear in court is not unconstitutional, though.

And we already have debtor's prisons -- folks get locked up for failing to pay child support all the time. Seems to me that it's no less of a debtor's prison just cause society deems the debt to be a social good and the debtor to be scummy.

[Coyote_Bandit]

7. She was jailed because

she ignored an order to appear in court. Something very different than being jailed for being in debt.

[fasttense]

8. Pure spin.

They claim it's for not appearing in court but most all state constitutions clearly make it illegal to jail someone for any offense related to the debt. The failure to appear was clearly related to the debt. Otherwise you can claim you are jailing a debtor for lying, because by their actions they claimed to have the money to pay the debt. Or you could jail them for stealing, because they failed to pay the debt then they most have stolen the item. You can make up all sorts of weaselly worded crap to jail a debtor if not for state constitutions.

It is illegal and unconstitutional. They pick on the weakest among us in hopes they wont use their meager assets to fight back. Most of them just roll over, too afraid of imprisonment.

[Coyote_Bandit]

9. Disregarding a court order to appear

is called contempt of court.

If you do that then you get your butt thrown in jail. Doesn't matter what the underlying legal matter was about.

The offense is disregarding the power and authority of the court.

[fasttense]

10. According to the article some of the victims didn't even know about the court order.

In some of the cases there was NO contempt of court, they merely dragged in people who failed to pay. In other cases they were given two different court orders for the same debt. So the victims thinks they have paid the debt then another agency starts hounding them for the same debt using the same illegal court procedures and they think the second one was in error.

Here's a question for you if you ignore an illegal court order, then you go to jail for the illegal court order are you really in contempt of the law?

Seems to me these courts, judges and police are acting in violation of the law. I guess they can violate the law just don't let a poor person make a mistake.

It's just manipulation of the law just like John Yoo who encouraged and facilitate torture of POWs. As long as you are a puppet of the rich and powerful, there is no law you can't violate. But if your poor, wow, look out.

[Coyote_Bandit]

11. Ummmm......

Go to law school. Really. You seem to have the passion to defend those who are exploited. We need lawyers like that instead of money grubbers.