Carter is a putative class action brought on behalf of low-income municipal court defendants in Montgomery who were jailed when they could not pay debt arising from minor misdemeanors and traffic violations. Montgomery contracted with for-profit probation company Judicial Correction Services (JCS) to collect debt. JCS’s system was “offender-funded,” meaning the company didn’t charge the City a penny for its debt-collection services. Instead, the Montgomery Municipal Court JCS placed traffic debtors on supervised “probation” with JCS. These probationers were ordered to pay $40 every month in probation fees on top of their underlying fines. It was a lucrative business model: JCS took in over $15 million in fees in Montgomery alone — and almost $60 million statewide before it was forced out of Alabama. When probationers could not afford to pay, JCS petitioned the court to revoke their probation and have them arrested, and the court “commuted” (or converted) their fines to days in jail — without an ability-to-pay determination. This practice violated probationers’ Due Process and Sixth Amendment rights. Our case seeks to hold the City of Montgomery, JCS, and a contract public defender responsible for these alleged violations of our clients’ constitutional and state-law rights.
In July 2020, the district court denied the Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. We are currently working to certify the classes and have appealed the trial court’s order denying our motion for class certification to the Eleventh Circuit. The Carter appeal has been consolidated with the appeal in a sister case, McCullough v. City of Montgomery.
Check out our blog post about the District Court’s decision.