State's high court vacates fines for indigent defendant

The reputed Mexican Mafia figure had said he didn't have the money to pay fees.

- BY SONJA SHARP

California civil liberties groups cheered a decision by the state Supreme Court that wipes out hundreds of dollars in fines for a reputed Mexican Mafia member — a move advocates say strengthens protections for indigent defendants in other cases.

"This holding is a meaningful step toward a justice system that does not punish people for poverty," said Kathryn Eidmann of Public Counsel, whose landmark 2019 victory set the stage for Monday’s decision.

The ruling irons out recent judicial efforts to protect California convicts from what Associate Justice Goodwin H. Liu called “cascading consequences” of administrative debt.

"While a defendant's poverty does not make him any less subject to punishment for violating the law, our justice system must not punish a defendant more harshly simply because he is poor," Liu wrote in his concurrence.

The case is one of scores to emerge in the wake of People vs. Dueñas, a 2019 ruling from the state’s appellate division that found imposing mandatory fines on indigent people ran afoul of the 8th Amendment, which prohibits excessive fines along with cruel and unusual punishment. Velia Dueñas was a homeless mother with cerebral palsy and two young children who ended up behind bars and drowning in debt because she continued to drive after her license was suspended over three unpaid citations she racked up as a teenager.