Reynajia Variste was stopped by police at an informal checkpoint in her neighborhood after a robbery in May of this year.
When police ran her name through a database, they found that she owed $900 from a 2014 offense, in which she pleaded guilty. Variste owed the money as a result of costs and fees imposed by the court, but she was unable to pay.
When her Collections Department warrant for non-payment came up during the checkpoint, she was handcuffed, arrested, and jailed, as a result of her inability to pay the court debt.
Variste was pregnant at the time and her family was worried about her and the unborn baby’s health. While in jail, she was not allowed to shower for three days, and due to her pregnancy, could not tolerate the food. A prison guard denied her medical help for two days after she began bleeding.
She sat in jail for seven days before her family could pull together the $400 – half the amount she owed – needed for her release.
On Thursday, Variste and five other plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit against the criminal district court in New Orleans, claiming that judges and court officials benefit financially by an “illegal scheme” of arresting and jailing poor people for their inability to pay court fines.
The suit alleges people living in poverty face high fees with no court hearings about their ability to pay and no notice about when they would be released from jail. Poverty is widespread in New Orleans where 27% of the city's population is impoverished, according to the United States Census Bureau.
“No inquiry was made into their individual circumstances, their ability to pay, or whether they constituted a danger to the community or a risk of flight prior to the setting of this secured money bond,” according to the suit. “Some languished in jail for days and others remained locked up for weeks.”
These practices are part of a larger system where “financial conflicts of interest have derailed the pursuit of justice,” the plaintiffs claim in the lawsuit. The jailor, the lawyer, the prosecutor, and the judge benefit financially by jailing low-income people, the suit alleges.
“It’s egregious to think you can fund all the people who make decisions about criminal cases and give them all incentive to impose high fees,” Alec Karakatsanis a founder of the civil rights group Equal Justice Under Law and one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit told BuzzFeed News, adding that this system removes the neutrality of due process.
This lawsuit is similar to one filed in two Missouri towns in February, which claimed the two St. Louis suburbs excessively fined and jailed impoverished people for unpaid traffic violations to raise revenue.
“Nationally, this is a huge problem,” Karakatsanis said. “All of these impoverished people are stuck in a cycle of debt and jailing. We must bring an end to these egregious injustices.”
