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A comment on In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Defendants. Parent comment

Re:In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Def... by sixothree on Wednesday March 26, 2025 @09:39AM (#43482179)
One of the most repulsive and eye-opening experiences I have had is sitting in my local traffic court for 4 hours. It became clear to me that court was filled with people trying to go to work or live their lives but end up being saddled with thousands of dollars in fines.

The worst part of the experience for me was agreeing to pay my $150 fine. This was the amount stated by the judge. But of course when you actually go to pay, the cost if $400 because of the fees. I'd rather just pay a lawyer next time.

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Re:In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Def... by fkyoureadthedoc on Wednesday March 26, 2025 @10:58AM (#43482974)
Back when I was too broke to afford a lawyer, my favorite part of traffic court the couple times I went was all the people video calling in from the local jail who are in jail because they didn't pay tickets they couldn't afford and then inform the court that no they still can't pay them because they are in jail.
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Re:In Jail Without a Lawyer: How a Texas Town Fails Poor Def... by qingcharles on Wednesday March 26, 2025 @01:38PM (#43484662)
The bail payments are awful too.

For a few years before Illinois did away with cash bail they had a rule you could pay your bail off $5/day by... sitting in jail. So if you sat in jail for a year you might actually save up enough credit to be able to bail out.

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