Miscellaneous

One Fine Day in Wisconsin

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Access issues aside, here's yet another reason to avoid imposing fines, fees, and surcharges: they can get taken away with the stroke of a pen. Thus, organizations who depend on such income may have their cash flow cut off rather quickly.

Case in point: the Wisconsin legislature recently enacted a law prohibiting judges and prosecutors from requiring defendants to pay their fines to a specific organization. Groups such as Crime Stoppers and the clinically-disproven D.A.R.E. had come to rely on such funding.

Court officials seemed to agree that the practice should have been banned long ago. Indeed, a former d.a.* was found offering deals to defendants based on whether they "contributed" to such organizations.

See Law Limits Fines, Cuts Money Anti-Crime Groups Get, AP/Green Bay Press-Gazette (May 5, 2008); Fines Can't Go to Nonprofit and Anti-Crime Groups, Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin State Journal (May 5, 2008); and DA's Deals Let People Buy Way Out of Trouble, Dee J. Hall and Andy Hall, Wisconsin State Journal (July 12, 2003).

* Fun fact: the d.a. was Vince Biskupic, whose sister Joan reports on the Supreme Court for USA Today, and whose brother Steven was almost one of the ousted DOJ attorneys.

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on May 05, 2008 (boomark / email).