Thomas

A Broken Court System

Tags Justice for All Government Municipal Courts

Everyone I know has broken a law in their life, but not everyone I know has gone to jail or been charged with a crime. The people charged with crime in the United States of America are poor and mostly minorities. And in terms of character, I don’t view them as any different. The folk I see in those courts are no different than me and you. The difference is they don’t have the resources. They don’t have the money primarily. And when they say, ‘I made a mistake,’ the courts don’t listen to them. When you and I say we made a mistake, people listen to us. And suppose we couldn’t get the money together to take care of the problem. As far as I’m concerned, what society views as a criminal is a poor person who didn’t have the resources to address the issue upfront. We’re all lawbreakers. There’s zero question that every single person I know has broken a law and probably committed felonies and they just haven’t been arrested for it. Or, they had the resources to address it so it didn’t become a major problem.

Listen to what poor people say and what people from communities of color tell you about the legal system and take it at face value. Reduce some of your skepticism about this just because it hasn’t happened to you. The FBI says 96% of the people who are arrested in American are arrested for non-violent offenses (excluding traffic violations). We incarcerate six times the number of African Americans as South Africa incarcerated at the height of apartheid. These are just numbers that are impossible to ignore, and those aren’t numbers that Arch City Defenders came up with. You take probably the most conservative source of information and they’re saying this is a huge problem.

Mostly what I hear is when we set up this system, we never thought about the way it would affect poor people. That’s the most dangerous thing I’ve heard a person say.

We shouldn’t need that statistical support to believe human beings when they tell us what happened. Go to a homeless shelter, go to a jail and talk to five people about why they’re there. You’ll never hear someone say, ‘I woke up this morning and chose to be homeless or chose to be arrested.’ You will hear a story of things that happen to human beings:‘I got sick. My car broke down. I lost my job.’ That happens to everybody, right? Everyone we know. Where are the resources to support you when those things happen? It’s the difference between a homeless person and a person who has access to additional resources. It’s important to talk to people, treat them as human beings, listen to what people are saying, and take it seriously. If people just did that, that would be enough. It would be changing.

Thomas Harvey, photos by Lindy Drew

One of the things we talk about between the way the City of St. Louis treats it’s courts and the way St. Louis County does — and the City of St. Louis has problems, but — generally speaking, there’s a fundamental principle which is a judge in the St. Louis City municipal court starts with the understanding that poor people exist and they didn’t chose to be poor. And if you just shifted to that understanding about the way you treat people who are standing in front of you who are poor and don’t have the money, it is very different. Just listen to people and believe their human experience. I mean, it sounds like a small thing, but that’s really a monumentally important thing.

There was a guy locked up in the city state court charged with a misdemeanor for stealing a sandwich from a QuikTrip because he was hungry. Literally, the Jean Valjean defense — I’m so hungry, I’m stealing this sandwich. He was arrested and they set a $75,000 cash-only bond on him in the jail. That bond got reduced to $100, but, honestly, for this man, that doesn’t make any difference. He didn’t have $75,000 just like he didn’t have $100. He had already sat in jail for 45 days before we met him.

We got him out of jail that day. That work was nothing. What he needed and what he was eligible for was TANF and EBT. And he’s low-functioning. He would have never been able to do this on his own. He was never able to connect with someone to help him walk through it. Our staff attorney spent four days with this guy, she got him set up with EBT, and she got him someone to help him with his daily activities. That’s the work that could really make a difference in this region — if our staff attorney didn’t have to go out to court every single night and beg judges to not hit a homeless veteran with fines they can’t afford.

I need more lawyers. I need more social workers. We need more staff to help fight these fights. But, systemically, the reason we started talking about this bigger problem is that it’s worse to bring a couple of lawsuits and write that paper to try to end those courts. I could send an army of lawyers every single night and we’re not going to change those courts. Suing the towns for their illegal practices and engaging in public advocacy around ending those courts are much more useful ways to manage our resources.

Locking a person up, putting a human being in a cage solely because they don’t have money — it’s long settled in America that that’s illegal. You can’t do that.

So what can the public do? They don’t have to take our word for it. Go talk to people about why they’re in those courts, why they’re in those jails, why they’re in those shelters. And then support the abolition of those courts. There’s no societal good that comes from our municipal court system as it is currently structured.

I will say that there are some decision makers, some lawyers, who didn’t believe what was going on. They’re not persuaded by me. They’re persuaded by the affidavits of our clients. They’re persuaded by the personal testimony and the numbers. They need all those things. And in those conversations, I’ll tell you the most frightening thing. I wish I could derive a positive, but it actually terrifies me. Mostly what I hear is when we set up this system, we never thought about the way it would affect poor people. That’s the most dangerous thing I’ve heard a person say.

And these are people who are ‘good guys.’ The type of guys you’d sit down and have a beer with in person. But, simultaneously, that person is saying, ‘I never gave any thought to how this system I helped create would impact people.’ Basically, what they’re saying is, ‘I gave serious thought to how it would help my peers, but not how it would help people I don’t know.’ And that is arguably the most dangerous sentiment you could have because it’s clear that that system works for middle-class people. It’s a system perfect for folks who have a little bit of money. It just doesn’t work for anyone who doesn’t. So that, to me, indicates a massive failure going backward.

I wish I could be more positive about it, but it’s really disturbing when people say, ‘Oh, well, we never thought of that.’ And that’s the definition of an enlightened person right now in St. Louis. A person who can say, ‘I never thought about that.’ I want to live in a world where people give that serious consideration as they are designing a system, not after it’s been proven to be a massive failure.

DSC_ 16429

Our clients have been telling us stuff for years that we just couldn’t believe. People had been telling us that, “They put me in jail because I didn’t bring a payment to court. They wouldn’t let my kids come into court. I told them I was living in a homeless shelter and they said, ‘I don’t care. Go call everyone you know. I want the money.’” And these are things that, as lawyers, we know that’s all illegal. These are all at least illegal if not immoral, unethical, and inhumane. But, locking a person up, putting a human being in a cage, solely because they don’t have money, is long settled in America that that’s illegal. You can’t do that. So as a new lawyer, I’m going to be honest — I didn’t believe them.

One of the biggest disconnects the judges have is they say things like, ‘Well, everyone comes in here and tells us they’re poor.’ Well, yeah, because they are all poor. Because if they weren’t poor, they would have paid one of the many people who advertise this work for a low rate to come out there and take care of the case. Our clients told us about this. Regular human beings who’ve had this happen their entire lives have been telling us the first day, ‘This isn’t about public safety. It’s about the money.’

Preston and Sharon

Our youth present our greatest opportunity to impact positive and lasting change. Addressing our endeavors to the whole child through education, health, encouragement, support, and opportunities will fundamentally change their lives now and their futures forever.

Tags Justice for All Youth at the Center Racial Equity Education Reforming School-Based Discipline

Dawn

Achieving justice for all requires a commitment to begin an honest review of how consolidation of police departments and municipal courts could commence. Building relationships based upon mutual respect and trust, being transparent about challenging and destructive behaviors and embracing fair and reasonable laws and policies will lay the foundation for unbiased, responsive government.

Tags Consolidation Justice for All Court Reform

Kevin

I believe if you treat people with respect, you get respect back. Getting face-to-face and eye-to-eye contact, and having discussions with people who might have a different view than you do, is vitally important. It allows both people to see the others point of view.

Tags Justice for All Re-Envisioning Law Enforcement Response to Demonstration Restoring Civilian-Law Enforcement Relations Through Community Policing Promoting Officer Wellness Improving Officer Training

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