Debtors' Prisons: Alive & Well In New Hampshire?

From a recent report by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire:

• In a practice startlingly akin to the debtors’ prisons of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Circuit Court judges in New Hampshire commonly jail those who have no ability to pay fines without a meaningful hearing and without providing access to counsel. This practice imposed on our most vulnerable citizens is unconstitutional, financially unsound, and cruel.
  
  In an alarming number of cases where indigent defendants appear in court to address an unpaid fine, judges do not inform these defendants of their rights. Judges do not afford them a lawyer. Judges do not even determine whether they can pay the fine. Judges simply put them in jail.
  
  This practice is systemic. A year-long investigation conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Hampshire (“ACLU-NH”), in conjunction with University of New Hampshire School of Law Professor and ACLUNH Board Chair Albert E. Scherr, has revealed that the problem is not limited to a rogue judge or court, but is occurring throughout the state.
  
  This practice is also illegal. The United States Constitution, New Hampshire Constitution, New Hampshire law, and New Hampshire’s own Circuit Court rules all prohibit this modern-day version of a debtors’ prison. The law clearly states that, before an individual can be incarcerated for failure to pay a fine or fee, the court must (i) meaningfully inquire into the reasons for the failure to pay and (ii) determine that the individual is willfully refusing to pay despite having sufficient resources. The law prohibits courts from jailing individuals who simply cannot afford to pay.
  
  The Federal and State Constitutions further require representation by counsel if the judge is considering incarceration for failing to pay a fine or fee in a criminal case. In criminal cases, the State already has representation in the form of a prosecutor.
  
  Yet, according to our data, in 2013 New Hampshire judges jailed people who were unable to pay fines and without conducting a meaningful ability-to-pay hearing in an estimated 148 cases. In all of these cases, defendants were sent to jail without representation by counsel. And in three cases handled by the ACLU-NH in 2014, two Superior Court Judges and the New Hampshire Supreme Court granted relief to three individuals—Alejandra Corro, Richard Vaughan, and Dennis Suprenant—who were (or were going to be) jailed by Circuit Courts in violation of these constitutional principles. These cases, which are described in the “Personal Stories” section below, show that debtors’ prison practices can counterproductively lead to termination of an individual’s new employment, impede ongoing efforts of that individual to gain employment, and prevent struggling parents from caring for their infant children.
  

For the rest of the report, see Debtors’ Prisons in New Hampshire.