Attorneys: NC court fees are unconstitutional

"The purpose of these spiraling financial punishments is to support any and all state functions that the legislators deem appropriate," attorneys wrote in a motion filed Monday.

This argument isn't a separate lawsuit, but part of an ongoing criminal prosecution against a pair of protesters arrested at the Legislative Building last year during a demonstration against House Bill 2. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which has also challenged North Carolina's voter identification law and legislative redistricting plans, helped develop the legal theory, and the groups hope other defendants will file similar motions.

This argument has been tried before, but in all of those cases, it was eventually rendered moot when judges waived the fines in question, Southern Coalition for Social Justice spokesman Dustin Chicurel-Bayard said Monday.

Spokespeople for House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, who head up a Republican legislative majority that has pushed judges to waive court fees less often in recent years, did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment on Monday's filing. Attorney General Josh Stein's office declined comment, citing standard policy for a pending criminal case.

The state's chart of criminal court costs and fees runs two pages, with fees ranging from $2 to $600. The minimum court fee totals $178 in District Court and $205 for Superior Court cases, more than four times what they were in 1995, according to the motion.

Had those fees not been increased, except for inflation, over the past two decades, the cost in District Court would be about $67 today.

Included in these standard fees are smaller ones that go toward maintaining courthouse technology, funding law enforcement retirement plans, keeping up the state's criminal DNA database and staffing the state's Criminal Justice Education and Standards Commission. Other tack-on fees include $60 to apply for a court-appointed attorney, hourly fees for these attorneys, $600 if the State Crime Lab is used in a case and another $600 if a lab expert testifies in the case.

Defendants also are charged $10 a day to stay in jail if they can't make bail before trial, the motion states.

"These are only a few of the many fees which can be imposed upon a criminal defendant, a list which is apparently only limited by the imagination of our legislatures in their quest to find ways to shift the costs of running the criminal justice system," the motion states.

The filing promises more motions and new arguments to come beyond the state constitutional argument focused on school funding. Among other things, it suggests "the inevitable rebirth of debtors’ prisons" as fines mount, waivers fall and indigent defendants are unable to pay.

The Charlotte Observer reported in November that more than 300 people were locked up in the Mecklenburg County jail on any given day solely because they didn't pay fines or other penalties in a criminal case. A statewide version of that statistic isn't available, and Cristina Becker, who has worked this issue for the ACLU, said not all counties collect this data.

Monday's motion notes a number of legal precedents, including a 1976 case out of Guilford County that went to the state Supreme Court. The basic rule from that case is that fines don't have to go towards K-12 schools if they're charged to cover specific costs of an individual case beyond the justice system's "normal operating costs."

"This requirement is both absurd and insurmountable," Monday's motion states. "Its only purpose is to put a stop to any and all waivers of costs and fees for indigent defendants."

It was unclear at the time whether this implementation of the law would satisfy the legislators who pushed for its inclusion in the most recent state budget.