Morris v. Schoonfield

• Decision Date: 19 June 1969
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 19703.
• Citation: 301 F. Supp. 158
• Parties: Phillip MORRIS, Diego Cordova Cesario (also known as Diego Cordova), Joseph J. Dingle, Calvin Scott Coles, Charles Thomas, Dale K. Quinby, Plaintiffs, and Wilbur Gray, Intervening Plaintiff, v. Hiram SCHOONFIELD, Warden, Baltimore City Jail, and State of Maryland.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

301 F. Supp. 158

Phillip MORRIS, Diego Cordova Cesario (also known as Diego Cordova), Joseph J. Dingle, Calvin Scott Coles, Charles Thomas, Dale K. Quinby, Plaintiffs, and Wilbur Gray, Intervening Plaintiff, v. Hiram SCHOONFIELD, Warden, Baltimore City Jail, and State of Maryland.

Civ. No. 19703.

United States District Court D. Maryland.

June 19, 1969.

Robert J. Fisher, Elsbeth Levy Bothe, Stuart H. Rome and William H. Zinman, Baltimore, Md., for plaintiffs.

Francis B. Burch, Atty. Gen. of Maryland, and Alfred J. O'Ferrall, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State of Maryland.

George L. Russell, Jr., City Sol. of Baltimore City, and Roger C. Duncan, Asst. City Sol., for the Warden, Baltimore City Jail.

Before WINTER, Circuit Judge, and THOMSEN and HARVEY, District Judges.

THOMSEN, District Judge.

This is the second case filed in this Court attacking the constitutionality of Article 38, sections 1 and 4 of the Maryland Code, which provide for commitment to jail for nonpayment of fines and costs.

Article 38 deals with Fines and Forfeitures. Sections 1 and 4 provide in pertinent part:

"§ 1. Mode of recovering; * * *

"When any fine or penalty is imposed by any act of Assembly of this State or by any ordinance of any incorporated city or town in this State enacted in pursuance of sufficient authority, for the doing of any act forbidden to be done by such act of Assembly or ordinance, or for omitting to do any act required to be done by such act of Assembly or ordinance, the doing of such act or the omission to do such act shall be deemed to be a criminal offense; * * * If any person shall be adjudged guilty of any such offense by any court having jurisdiction in the premises, he shall be sentenced to the fine or penalty prescribed by such act of Assembly or ordinance and to the costs of his prosecution; and in default of payment thereof he shall be committed to jail until thence discharged by due course of law. * * *"

"§ 4. Confinement for nonpayment.

"Any person who shall or may hereafter be committed to jail on any charge, including contempt of court, by the judgment of any court or by any justice of the peace of this State, for nonpayment of any fine and costs, shall be confined one day for every two dollars of fine and costs but in no event shall be confined more than thirty days for fine and costs amounting to one hundred dollars, nor more than sixty days for fine and costs exceeding one hundred dollars but not more than five hundred dollars nor more than ninety days for fine and costs exceeding five hundred dollars. All periods of confinement imposed under the provisions of this section because of nonpayment of two or more fines and costs shall run concurrently unless it shall be specified by the court or justice of the peace that said periods shall run consecutively."

Section 4 was amended, effective July 1, 1968, to read as set out above. Previously the ratio of days in jail to dollars of unpaid fine and costs had been one day of confinement for each dollar of fine and costs.

The previous action was brought by several persons who had been convicted of violating the curfew imposed during the riots in Baltimore in April 1968, on behalf of themselves and of others similarly situtated. They alleged, and the State admitted, that they were indigent and therefore unable to pay their fines. A three-judge court, composed of the same judges who compose the court in this case, held that commitment to jail for nonpayment of fines did not violate plaintiffs' constitutional rights, but that in view of the divergent practices admittedly then existing, the State could not constitutionally include costs in computing the time to be served under Article 38, section 4. Kelly v. Schoonfield, 285 F.Supp. 732, decided May 28, 1968.

The present action was filed on July 12, 1968, by six persons who had been convicted of various offenses by the Municipal Court of Baltimore City, and were confined in the Baltimore City Jail for nonpayment of fines and costs. Three of the plaintiffs (Cesario, Thomas and Quinby) completed their sentences shortly after this action was filed. The other three (Morris, Coles and Dingle) have been released on bail by a judge of the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City pending the decision of this case. The intervenor, Gray, was released by this Court on his own recognizance.

Plaintiffs are suing on their own behalf and on behalf of all other indigent persons detained by the Warden of the Baltimore City Jail under Article 38, sections 1 and 4, for nonpayment of fines and/or costs. They claim that those sections are unconstitutional as applied to indigents because they violate the "excessive fines" and "cruel and unusual punishment" provisions of the Eighth Amendment, the "due process" and "equal protection" clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the "involuntary servitude" provision of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Defendants¹ filed a motion to dismiss on various grounds, which was denied by this Court on February 12, 1969, following a hearing. At the same time, this Court held that under the stipulated facts the State cannot constitutionally include costs in computing the time to be served under Article 38, section 4, and enjoined the respondent Warden of the Baltimore City Jail from detaining any person in jail on account of nonpayment of any court costs theretofore or thereafter imposed. The majority of this Court, however, desired additional facts before deciding the other questions raised. An additional stipulation has been filed, testimony has been taken and exhibits received.

I. Costs

We adhere to the views expressed in our opinion filed on January 29, 1969, with respect to costs.²

This Court, therefore, declares that under the stipulated facts in this case the State cannot constitutionally include costs in computing the time to be served under Article 38, section 4. As noted above, this Court issued an injunction to that effect on February 12, 1969. This decision makes it unnecessary to decide whether commitment for nonpayment of costs also violates the due process clause.

II. Fines

Plaintiffs' first contention is that the provisions of Article 38, sections 1 and 4 are unconstitutional on their face because they establish a fixed correlation between the amount of the fine and the number of days to be served in default of payment of the fine, which is applied in cases where defendants are unable to pay as well as in cases where they are unwilling. Plaintiffs also contend that the ratio of one day's confinement for each $2.00 of the fine is unreasonable. Of course, a statute providing a fixed correlation may be challenged on its face, or because of the manner in which it is applied by courts generally, or because of the manner in which it is applied in a particular case.

The statutes of the several states vary greatly in their provisions. Some have a fixed correlation, running from one day for each $.25³ of the fine to one day for each $10.00⁴ of the fine. Most have limitations on the total time which may be required to be served, generally similar to the limitations in section 4 of the Maryland statute under consideration, but varying from state to state.

The statutes of some of the states require the judge to fix in each case the ratio between the amount of the fine and the time to be served for nonpayment.⁵ See, e. g., the New York statute held constitutional in United States ex rel. Privitera v. Kross, 239 F.Supp. 118 (S.D.N.Y.), aff'd 345 F.2d 533 (2 Cir.), cert. den., 382 U.S. 911, 86 S.Ct. 254, 15 L.Ed.2d 163 (1965), and the New York statute now in effect.⁶ Other statutes, e. g., the Federal statute, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3569, require that a defendant be released after a certain period upon his filing an affidavit that he is unable to pay the fine. Some states, like Maryland,⁷ have statutes allowing a judge to permit the fine to be paid in installments.

The Court held in Kelly that the confinement of indigents, as well as others, for a limited period because of non-payment of fines does not deny them the equal protection of the laws and does not constitute, in the abstract, cruel and unusual punishment. Unanimously, we concluded: "The commitment of convicted defendants who default in the payment of their fines, whether from inability or unwillingness to pay, imposes a burden upon a defined class to achieve a permissible end in which the State has a vital interest; i. e., that persons who are found guilty of breaking the laws shall receive some appropriate punishment, to impress on the offender the importance of observing the law, in the hope of reforming him, and to deter the offender and other potential offenders from committing such offenses in the future. * * * Article 38, section 4 is a constitutionally permissible way of accomplishing the desired results; the class established thereby and the distinction drawn therein have `some relevance to the purpose for which the classification is made', and are not illegally discriminatory." 285 F.Supp. at 737. The majority of the Court adheres to those views for the reasons stated in Kelly.⁸

Even with the limitations fixed by the Maryland statutes on the period for which a defendant may be held,⁹ a ratio of one day to each $2.00 of fine seems to set a very low number of dollars for each day to be served. Although we would prefer a different statute,¹⁰ we are not convinced that the statute in its present form is unconstitutional on its face. See Palko v. Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 58 S.Ct. 149, 82 L.Ed. 288 (1937); Adamson v. California, 332 U.S. 46, 67 S.Ct. 1672, 91 L.Ed. 1903 (1947) (compare concurring opinion of Frankfurter, J., and dissenting opinion of Black, J.); Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965) (compare conflicting opinions of Douglas, Harlan, Goldberg and Black, JJ.); Kelly v. Schoonfield, supra.

The ratio suggests that Article 38, sections 1 and 4...