The anger was still there, but this time, it was channeled into answering a question: how to repair a court system that many perceive as oppressive?
At its third meeting, the Ferguson Commission on Monday addressed the workings of St. Louis County’s many municipal courts.
About 200 people attended the meeting at St. Louis University.
The commission limited public comments to about 25 minutes and then had people break into smaller groups to recount their experiences with the municipal courts and proposed reforms.
Some of St. Louis County’s 82 municipal courts have been described as debtors’ prisons that force the poor to pay large fines for minor traffic offenses.
Critics have also said they are a key contributor to much of the civil unrest that beset the region in the aftermath of Michael Brown’s killing on Aug. 9 by a Ferguson police officer. The commission was created by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon to address “social and economic conditions†highlighted by protests.
People are also reading…
In one of the four breakout sessions, Kelvin Durham, 58, said Beverly Hills police pulled him over a couple of years ago for not having the proper registration on a trailer. Durham, a landscaping contractor, said police towed the vehicle and he was never able to get it back because he couldn’t afford the fines.
“It’s not about us,†said Durham. “It’s about revenue for these municipalities.â€
One parent said she was not allowed to attend court with her son because she was told “the court wasn’t big enough.â€
One suggested reform piggybacked on a proposal already in the Missouri Senate: capping a city’s revenue from traffic fines to 10 percent, instead of 30 percent as state law allows. Others proposed consolidating the courts and letting defendants perform community service rather than pay fines.
Frank Vatterott, Overland’s municipal judge, has led a committee of local municipal court officials who have been studying potential reforms.
“What’s amazing is the things you are saying is exactly what we are trying to work on,†Vatterott told one breakout session.
He added that the proposal to cap traffic fine revenue at 10 percent would cause many of the county’s municipalities to disappear.
After the sessions, the commission heard from Thomas Harvey, executive director of ArchCity Defenders; Mae Quinn, a Washington University law school professor; and Dave Leipholtz of Better Together St. Louis, all of whom portrayed the courts as being in desperate need of fixing. Harvey and Quinn received standing ovations after they described a system that keeps the poor impoverished.They all said that municipalities routinely violate the state law that limits revenue from fines to 30 percent of the cities’ budgets, but almost always go unpunished.
When Ferguson Commission Co-Chair Starsky Wilson questioned them about who in state government was responsible for enforcing that particular law, none of them could provide a clear answer.
Harvey said that problems with the county’s courts have long been known, but no one has been interested in correcting them.
“If the people in the state were going to do something about it, they would have done it,†he said. “It’s not like the system is broken, it works how it is supposed to work.â€
