Wasco County DA Announces Policy To Not Pursue Monetary Sanctions; Minimize Consequences of Court Debt
“Where Oregon law allows, this office will not pursue monetary sanctions and will seek to minimize the collateral consequences of court debt,” reads the DA’s monetary sanctions policy.
Wasco County District Attorney Matthew Ellis.
By Cole Goodwin
The Wasco County District Attorney, Matthew Ellis, has announced the first of three new policies that the DA plans to roll out early this year. The first of these policies aims to promote best practices, reduce harm and discrimination towards vulnerable community members and save the County money and time by limiting monetary sanctions (fines, legal fees) associated with the legal system, and objecting to incarceration as a punishment for failure to pay court debts.
The policy’s introduction reads:
“Monetary sanctions harm Wasco County individuals and families, generate little or no revenue for local government, and fail to make survivors of crime whole. National data suggest that like other types of punishment, monetary sanctions fall most heavily on Latinx, Black, Native, low income, and rural people and people of color. Fees are designed only to generate revenue, while fines are intended to punish. Neither are evidence-based practices for rehabilitating, deterring, or even meaningfully achieving retribution for crime. This policy simply formalizes the Wasco County District Attorney’s practice of declining to seek monetary sanctions and minimizing the collateral consequences of legal system involvement—its goal is to limit the financial burdens on system-involved Oregonians and bring best practices to the District Attorney’s office.”
The policy makes official the DA’s office practice of:
Not imposing discretionary fees and fines in criminal cases, with an exception for compensatory fines.
Not using unpaid fees and fines as a reason to object to an expungement motion.
Objecting to the use of incarceration as a punishment for nonpayment of monetary sanctions.
Under the new policy some offenses may still carry different minimum and maximum fines, and there may be additional fees authorized in statute, administrative regulations, and judicial branch regulations. However the purpose of the policy is to reduce fines, fees, and the collateral consequences of court debt.
Emily Teplin Fox, a legal aid lawyer at the The Oregon Law Center, who serves low-income people across Oregon spoke to the ways in which monetary sanctions have impacted her clients.
“My colleagues and I have seen repeatedly how fees and fines associated with criminal cases, including minor violations, can wreak havoc on the lives of our low-income clients. The debt, which they can’t afford, balloons into even bigger debt they really can’t afford. Meanwhile their licenses are suspended (or they were, until 2020* when the legislature stopped that practice), their insurance premiums skyrocket, they can’t access expungement, their tax returns might be garnished, and they often struggle to find and maintain employment, housing, and more. All because they simply could not afford court-imposed fees and fines. People of color are disproportionately harmed by this spiral of court debt,” said Fox.
According to 2020 Census data 25% of Wasco County’s population are people of color.
Ellis concurred that monetary sanctions are both a burden and discriminatory in his policy saying that “Monetary sanctions, and the collateral consequences they bring, are harmful, discriminatory, and serve no purpose for the state…Fees and fines undermine the financial and emotional wellbeing of individuals and families, and disproportionately burden people of color. Black and Native men, and Native women, in particular, are overrepresented in Wasco County’s criminal system, and thus more often exposed to fees and fines.”
Survey data from Portland Community College’s CLEAR Clinic also supports the DA’s new policy.
“I have struggled to pay fines and fees for almost 20 years . . . I can't ever spend the money on things I need now or for the future. It feels like I can never get ahead,” a black Oregonian told PCCC surveyors.
Another Oregonian told PCC surveyors that, “as long as I have an outstanding fine I cannot expunge my record and . . . cannot find a good job to support my family.”
Ellis points out the unjustness of monetary sanctions in the face of a harsh economic reality in which the gaps between haves and have nots continue to grow.
“Monetary sanctions crush people who are unable to pay and merely inconvenience those who have the means, creating a two-tiered system based on income—this inequality is amplified when it comes to expungement,” said Ellis. “...Wasco County cannot afford to keep people saddled with criminal records for no reason when they could be contributing to society.”
In addition, Ellis says data shows that the collateral consequences of court debt correlate to increased criminal activity.
“The debt from fees and fines strains family budgets and relationships, while adversely affecting the mental and physical health of those the courts place in debt. These economic burdens also correlate to increased recidivism* and prolonged criminal system involvement,” said Ellis.
*Recidivism is defined as ‘the tendency of a convicted criminal to reoffend.”
To top it all off, Ellis reveals that monetary sanctions net little revenue.
“In addition to creating recidivism, fees and fines have been shown to net little revenue for courts—some schemes actually cost more to administer than they bring in. For example, before juvenile fees and fines were abolished, the Oregon Youth Authority spent $866,000 to collect $864,000 from families in 2019,” wrote Ellis.
In addition Ellis says that monetary sanctions present a conflict of interest for judges and reduce trust in local government.
“Pursuing fees and fines strains relationships between the community and government,” writes Ellis. “In jurisdictions where law enforcement pursues monetary sanctions aggressively, police have been shown to close more serious cases at a lower rate. Such low clearance rates, as well as high debt burdens, reduce public trust in police and in government as a whole, especially where draconian punishments like incarceration are on the table. Funding the judiciary on the backs of poor people further undermines public trust by creating a clear conflict between judges’ interest in court budgets and the impartial administration of justice.”
Fox said the DA’s new policy follows in the footsteps of “several other positive developments” in the realm of fees and fines in Oregon in recent years.
“The legislature took an important step forward when it ended the practice of suspending driver licenses for nonpayment of traffic debt in 2020,” said Fox.
“However, the law was only forward-looking. It was not retroactive. There are still about 119,000 Oregonians with driver licenses suspended for nonpayment of traffic tickets. And those suspensions last up to twenty years. As one of her final acts, late last year Governor Brown remitted the fees and fines of about 7,000 Oregonians with licenses suspended for nonpayment, clearing the way for them to get their driver licenses back.”
Fox had high praise for the DA’s new policy to limit monetary sanctions.
“It is inspiring to see the Wasco County DA’s office join these common sense efforts to revise how to handle fees and fines in criminal cases,” said Fox “The DA’s Monetary Sanction policy is well researched and data driven. It reflects thoughtful sensitivity to how engagement with the criminal justice system can affect people and their families for years. The policy also demonstrates a mountain of common sense. The policy is fantastic. We hope other DA’s consider taking similar steps.”
Read the full policy by clicking here.
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