Des Moines, Iowa — Last week, the Iowa Supreme Court allowed the ACLU of Iowa, the Fines and Fees Justice Center, and Public Justice to file an amicus brief in State of Iowa v. Ronald Pagliai (PAG-lee-eye), a case currently before the Court. The amicus brief argues that Iowa courts may not bill low-income Iowans for the cost of their court-appointed defense attorney when criminal charges against the person have been dismissed.
ACLU of Iowa Legal Director Rita Bettis Austen said, "We filed this amicus brief because it's fundamentally unfair to charge anyone exercising their constitutional right to free counsel. By definition, these are circumstances where the state has already determined someone is indigent and cannot afford to hire their own lawyer. It’s even worse when the state charges someone for these costs when the charges are ultimately dismissed. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty under the law."
Low-income Iowans charged with various offenses are eligible for a court-appointed attorney. What many of those people don't realize, however, is that this supposedly “free” service can in fact cost them thousands of dollars. This is especially unfair when the charges against a person are ultimately dropped.
Alex Kornya, former Iowa Legal Aid litigation director now serving as litigation director for Legal Aid Justice Center in Virginia, said, “States can constitutionally recoup the costs of an appointed defense attorney only when someone can repay without hardship. Iowa’s collection rate for defense counsel recoupment has been around 3 percent or less for the last decade, which is strong evidence that these costs are being assessed without regard to whether people can actually pay them. These debts can be thousands of dollars, and lead to garnishment, expungement denial, lost tax refunds, and other consequences people in poverty already can’t afford. Even worse, the debt sentence faced by Mathes, Pagliai, and thousands more like them with dismissed charges is higher than if they were convicted; the reason is that once the court dismisses a case, a person doesn’t have the right to ask the court to modify the debt based on their inability to pay anymore."
The defendant in this case was assessed the costs of his defense for two charges related to alleged shoplifting, even though they were ultimately dismissed.
The U.S. Supreme Court held 50 years ago that the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to an attorney paid for by the state if a person cannot afford counsel. Forty states, including Iowa, seek to recoup the costs of counsel from defendants, according to a 2022 report by the National Legal Aid and Defender Association.
Further, Iowa takes these efforts to the extreme, an investigation by The Marshall Project found. Not only does Iowa impose some of the highest fees in the nation—affecting tens of thousands of people each year—it also charges poor people for their public defenders even if they are acquitted or the cases against them are dropped. The practice is “definitely an outlier,” said Lisa Foster, Co-Executive Director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center, an advocacy organization that focuses on court debt.
It's not the first time advocates for low-income people have asked the courts to change this deeply unfair practice. In the State of Iowa v. Lori Dee Mathes (her case is described in the Marshall Project article), the case ended up in a tie, so according to the rules of the court, the law allowing district courts to impose court debt in criminal cases when all criminal charges are dismissed remained in place.
"Courts cannot uphold a fair justice system if they are funding it on the backs of the most vulnerable people that come before them,” said FFJC’s Foster. “To further extend this miscarriage of justice by enforcing it even when the case is dismissed sends a clear message that puts profit over people."
“Criminal fines and fees can haunt people long after their cases have ended,” said Public Justice’s Charles Moore. “And for someone who's already struggling to make ends meet, this kind of debt can be the determining factor in whether a parent can feed their kids or whether a family ends up homeless. Given the terrible impact on Iowa communities of owing this debt, the idea that courts are charging indigent Iowans for their public defender fees even when all charges are dismissed is irrational. It’s also unconstitutional.”
