A national legal organization has asked to file a "friend of the court" brief in a federal lawsuit in which a private probation services company is challenging the discontinuation of its services by two Craighead County District Court judges.
The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law says that for 20 years, the company has collected half a million dollars annually off the backs of thousands of largely poor and minority-group residents.
The judges, both of whom took office in 2016, carried out their campaign promises to cut off the company's services, saying they were putting a stop to unconstitutional practices that entrapped misdemeanor defendants in cycles of debt, fear, poverty and incarceration.
The allegations that the judges and the committee have lodged against the company, The Justice Network Inc. of Memphis, mirror those in a 2016 federal court lawsuit filed by the committee and the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas to challenge practices in Sherwood's hot-check court, whose operations the suit contends amount to an illegal "debtors' prison."
U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. dismissed the Sherwood case on June 8, saying it belonged in the state arena and not in federal court. The plaintiffs asked July 6 that Moody reconsider, and nothing has been filed since, except for the defendants' objection to reopening the case. Moody is also presiding over the Craighead County lawsuit, which was filed June 30 in the Jonesboro division of the federal Eastern District of Arkansas.
On Thursday, a day after the committee filed its request to intercede in the Craighead County case, an attorney for The Justice Network said the company's lawsuit "is being totally misconstrued."
"My client is only seeking to recover for services already rendered, not to perpetuate the relationship," said attorney Tim Edwards of Memphis.
Edwards said The Justice Network "provided professional services, such as a DWI school, that the government would have had to provide if the company didn't." He said the company provided its probation services to the county at a lower cost than the government could have.
He said the probationary services were ordered by the courts, and the company had no input into who is placed on probation or what happened to someone who defaulted on a probationary provision.
While the county is within its rights to terminate the company's services, the judges went too far when "they forgave what we were already owed," Edwards said. He said that amounts to "under half a million dollars."
The committee said Thursday: "Contrary to the Justice Network's meritless claims, Judges [David] Boling and [Tommy] Fowler did not only what the law allowed, but what it required. They refused to continue a decades-old unconstitutional practice. ... We encourage other state judges presiding over similarly unconstitutional probation regimes to follow their lead."
Edwards also disputed the committee's contention that the company's probation services discriminated against members of minority groups and the poor. He said the company is half black-owned and that court records show that "there were far more whites than people of color" whose probation was supervised by the company.
News articles from the Jonesboro Sun that the committee attached to its request to intercede indicate that probation services for misdemeanor offenders in the county have been a matter of contention for years, with much criticism aimed at The Justice Network, particularly by the district judges who promised before taking the bench to stop using the company's services.
Boling and Fowler went on to establish an "amnesty program" last year that forgives fees owed by probation clients to the Memphis company.
The newspaper described The Justice Network as a private, for-profit business that charged probationers fees in addition to what was owed to the court.
The committee said its brief "highlights the perversity of [the company's] complaint and the relief requested therein, as well as legal and policy justifications for the judges' actions."
Edwards said he doesn't plan to oppose the committee's proposed amicus brief.
The company contends that the judges' actions constitute "interference in the contractual relationship between The Justice Network and the probation clients." It says that interference has caused it to suffer "significant economic loss," and that it "will continue to sustain additional economic loss in the future, should the unlawful 'Amnesty Program' continue."
It said the judges' amnesty program has forced it to terminate all 12 of its full-time employees in its Jonesboro office.
The suit alleges that the judges and the nine cities within the county, who together constitute the defendants, have violated the company's civil rights under the U.S. Constitution's contracts and taking clauses by entering and allowing orders letting convicted persons off the hook for paying for court-ordered services that the company provided.
The suit also alleges that the defendants are violating state laws regarding the taking of private property without compensation. It seeks a declaratory judgment, an injunction to stop the amnesty program and monetary damages.
Metro on 08/25/2017