Overview
In the excerpts, “revenue generation” describes the practice by which a municipality funds itself through fines, fees and forfeitures rather than through taxation. Bob Zadek introduces the topic by saying that because of what he calls loopholes in constitutional law, judicial decisions and statutes, a system developed whereby law enforcement was allowed to keep and enjoy the benefits of citizens’ property obtained through forfeiture Abusive Fines and Fees (2022). He describes a process in which the property of a law-abiding citizen — one who has not committed a crime and is not accused of committing one — is taken by law enforcement and retained by the police department or the municipality, without a crime ever being accused and without any conviction Abusive Fines and Fees (2022).
Bill Maurer, a managing attorney in the Washington State office of the Institute for Justice, tells the story of how the organization came to the issue: while subscribed to the Twitter feed of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch during a free speech case in St. Louis, he saw an article about Pagedale, a small suburb outside of St. Louis The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022). Pagedale, he says, had basically made everything illegal — a kiddie pool in a front yard, a TV dish on the front of a house, an unpainted foundation, a crack in a driveway, mismatched curtains, no drapes on basement windows The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022).
Pagedale and the code enforcement machine
Maurer explains the mechanism: Missouri had restricted the amount of revenue that municipalities can keep from traffic tickets, so Pagedale, rather than living within its means or finding an alternative source of revenue, turned its code enforcement system into a revenue generation machine Abusive Fines and Fees (2022). The city began to generate about 20% of its entire revenue stream from fines and fees, in a city of about 3,000 people, the vast majority of whom lived under the poverty line The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022). On Thursday nights, when the municipal court heard cases regarding tickets issued by the city, the line would be out the door; the court averaged 241 cases per evening in a two-and-a-half-hour hearing every other Thursday night, roughly less than 30 seconds per hearing Abusive Fines and Fees (2022).
Maurer says many of the people receiving these tickets found them simply impossible to pay Abusive Fines and Fees (2022). He describes a client, a woman in her 80s, who received a list of over 20 things she needed to do around her house, and who faced fines she would not be able to pay if she did not do them; people who could not pay would not show up for their hearing, receive another violation for failure to appear, and then be arrested and jailed, losing their jobs and their ability to get to school or care for their children The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022). He calls it a really, really abusive system, and says Pagedale was not an outlier — it was in the middle of municipalities in St. Louis County in terms of the percentage of general revenue it received from fines and fees The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022). He notes that Pagedale shares similarities with nearby Ferguson, which had been doing the same thing, and that cities in Colorado received over 90% of their revenue from fines and fees The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022).
Brookside, Alabama
Maurer describes Brittany Coleman as one of the defendants in a lawsuit against the city of Brookside, Alabama, a town of about 1,500 people just outside of Birmingham Abusive Fines and Fees (2022). In about 2018, he says, the city decided to do what Pagedale had done and start getting a large amount of revenue from ticketing its citizens Abusive Fines and Fees (2022). Brookside, he says, is a remarkably safe town: from 2011 to 2018 it had recorded only 55 serious crimes and no rape and no murder, and in 2017 to 2018 it had no serious crimes at all Abusive Fines and Fees (2022). Starting in 2018, with the hiring of a new police chief, the number of tickets issued and the revenue they produced went up by 640% Abusive Fines and Fees (2022).
Coleman, a young mom on the way to a birthday party with her boyfriend, was following behind her boyfriend’s car, pulled over for following too closely, issued a ticket, and had her car towed; she was left standing on the side of the road with her child waiting for somebody to pick her up Abusive Fines and Fees (2022). Maurer says this sort of policing for profit is not just unconstitutional but oftentimes extraordinarily cruel Abusive Fines and Fees (2022).
Chicago’s impound system
Zadek raises Chicago, saying he recalls reading, probably in something the Institute for Justice published, that Chicago reduced forfeiture, particularly with respect to automobiles, to an art form — virtually organized crime meets municipal government The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022). Maurer agrees that Chicago still has an addiction to using impounds as a means of raising revenue, while allowing that there are times when a car must be impounded, such as when a driver is arrested or incapacitated The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022). He says Chicago was impounding cars that had been stolen, or that somebody had borrowed and generated speeding or parking tickets, with the tickets falling back on the owner of the car to fight or pay the impound fees The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022). Chicago, he says, was getting millions and millions of dollars every year from impounding cars, oftentimes from people who had done nothing wrong, and the Institute is suing about the impound system in court in Chicago The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022).
Zadek asks whether the cause of action is excessive fines. Maurer answers that that is oftentimes the hook, and that the other hook is the Due Process Clause, because the system carries a taint of financial interest from the very first moment a person is ticketed until conviction and sentencing The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022). He frames the question as whether a person would have gotten a ticket, been prosecuted, or been convicted if the city were not trying to collect revenue; if any answer is no, he says, the system is not protecting the public but interfering with people’s liberty and property in order to generate money The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots (2022).
Across episodes
The topic appears in two episodes, both from 2022-06-20: “Abusive Fines and Fees” and “The Hidden Cause of BLM Riots.” The Pagedale material is substantially the same in both — the tweet, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, the list of prohibited things, the 20% figure, the 241 cases per evening — with the second episode adding Ferguson, the woman in her 80s, the Colorado cities and the Chicago impound discussion. The excerpts show no development in the argument between the two treatments; the same guest, Bill Maurer, advances it in both.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the outcome of the Pagedale, Brookside or Chicago litigation, nor the name of any bill or ordinance at issue. They do not give the legal citations for the cases discussed, and they do not say which amendment the Excessive Fines Clause belongs to or what any court has held. The excerpts also break off before several sections — the Pagedale case discussion, the human cost of fines and fees, civil asset forfeiture and the fiction of guilty property, and the conclusion — so nothing from those sections is available.