An Alabama judge violated the constitutional rights of dozens of people when he made them choose between giving blood or going to jail for unpaid court debt, according to an ethics complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Perry County Circuit Judge Marvin Wiggins threatened defendants who appeared in court on Sept. 17 to deal with unpaid court debts with jail time if they were unable or unwilling to pay off their debts unless they donated blood, according to the complaint filed Monday with the Judicial Inquiry Commission of Alabama.
“If you do not have any money and you don’t want to go to jail, consider giving blood today and bring me your receipt back,” said Wiggins in an audio recording of the hearing. “Or the sheriff has enough handcuffs for those who do not have money.”
Wiggins told defendants to consider their blood donation “a discount rather than putting you in jail.”
“People who couldn’t pay their court debt with cash literally paid with their blood,” said Sara Zampierin, a staff attorney with the Southern Poverty Law Center. “This is a shocking disregard for not only judicial ethics but for the constitutional rights of defendants.”
The complaint argues that Wiggins violated Alabama and constitutional law, which protects the poor from being jailed over debts they are unable to pay. It further claims that forcing the defendants to give blood is a “violation of bodily integrity” and not an acceptable form of debt payment under state law.
The court was scheduled to hear more than 500 criminal cases that day. Most of the crimes were as minor as hunting and fishing violations, traffic violations, disorderly conduct, marijuana possession or drinking alcohol in public, according to a BuzzFeed News review of the docket.
Many of the people owed thousands of dollars to the court, even after making payments to pay down the debt, said Zampierin.
People who gave blood were led to believe that it would chip away at their debt. But no one who donated blood saw their court debt reduced, according to Southern Poverty Law Center’s review of the cases. Instead, they were only relieved of jail time.
Most of the people owed thousands of dollars in fees for court-appointed attorneys, according to the complaint, which also alleges that the fees were charged without a proper review of the defendants' ability to pay, as required by federal law.
“We want judges to be aware that these behaviors are not appropriate and not constitutional," Zampierin said, adding that "it violates the rights of people who appear before them.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has not ruled out a lawsuit, she added.
Wiggins was publicly reprimanded in July 2009 for failing to recuse himself from a court proceeding in which he ended a voter fraud investigation that included several of his family members.
The Judicial Inquiry Commission could recommend that Wiggins face ethics charges in the Alabama Court of the Judiciary, were he could be publicly reprimanded again or banned from the bench.
A representative for the Perry County Circuit Court did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News' requests for comment.
Read the ethics complaint here:
