Post by Logan on May 9, 2016 3:52:50 GMT -6
Federal Lawsuit: Borderland Challenge To Modern-Day ‘Debtor Prisons’ (El Paso)
This border city has a policy on its books that allows the city to jail people who cannot pay their traffic fines. Now a lawsuit filed in federal court is challenging the policy, saying it violates citizens’ constitutional right of equal protection under the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States constitution.
The story that led to the filing of this lawsuit was began at two o’clock in the morning April 23 2014. Levi Lane, was driving home after his shift at a dog food factory.
“I get intercepted by the police. They pull up behind my car,” Lane recounted. He said that police searched his car. And that he granted that permission to search the car after, he says, two officers told Lane they wanted to check the vehicle for narcotics.
“They didn’t find anything. They weren’t going to find anything,” Lane said. But the story changed immediately when the officers ran Lane’s license. “They found out that I had, like,13 traffic warrants,” he recounted. That translated to approximately 3400 dollars in unpaid fines.
Read more: www.texasstandard.org/stories/federal-lawsuit-borderland-challenge-to-modern-day-debtor-prisons/
This border city has a policy on its books that allows the city to jail people who cannot pay their traffic fines. Now a lawsuit filed in federal court is challenging the policy, saying it violates citizens’ constitutional right of equal protection under the law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States constitution.
The story that led to the filing of this lawsuit was began at two o’clock in the morning April 23 2014. Levi Lane, was driving home after his shift at a dog food factory.
“I get intercepted by the police. They pull up behind my car,” Lane recounted. He said that police searched his car. And that he granted that permission to search the car after, he says, two officers told Lane they wanted to check the vehicle for narcotics.
“They didn’t find anything. They weren’t going to find anything,” Lane said. But the story changed immediately when the officers ran Lane’s license. “They found out that I had, like,13 traffic warrants,” he recounted. That translated to approximately 3400 dollars in unpaid fines.
Read more: www.texasstandard.org/stories/federal-lawsuit-borderland-challenge-to-modern-day-debtor-prisons/