Impoverished Mother Dies In Jail Cell Over Unpaid Fines For Her Kids Missing School
Last edited Thu Jun 12, 2014, 12:40 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Think Progress
By Alan Pyke June 12, 2014 at 9:25 am Updated: June 12, 2014 at 9:33 am
A mother of seven died in a Pennsylvania jail over the weekend while serving a two-day sentence. Eileen DeNino, 55, was put in the cell where she died because she could not pay thousands of dollars in fines relating to her childrens truancy from schools in the Reading, PA area.
The cause of DeNinos death is not yet known, but investigators found no evidence that the death was suspicious, according to the Eagle. She was reportedly on medication for high blood pressure and other health issues. Prison officials said they issued no medication to DeNino before her death, however.
DeNino had been cited 55 times since 1999, according to the Reading Eagle. On top of the individual fines for truancy, the Pennsylvania courts applied a variety of fees that amplified DeNinos debt. DiNinos court file shows a laundry list of court fees for one case alone: $8 for a judicial computer project; $60 for Berks County constables; $10 for postage, the Associated Press writes.
The two judges who preside over truancy cases in the county where the DeNinos live expressed regret and frustration over DeNinos death. She didnt have a job. She was living in a house owned by a family member. She was on welfare. We sat and talked for a long time in my office and I could see that she couldnt pay the fines, Reading District Judge Wally Scott told the Eagle. I cleared all her cases last year.
District Judge Dean R. Patton sentenced DeNino to 48 hours in jail after she failed to produce documentary evidence of her inability to pay the more than $2,000 in accrued fines and fees. The sentence could have been as long as 45 days of jail time. I bent over backwards for this woman, Patton told the Eagle, but I cant just dismiss her cases without justification.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/06/12/3448105/mother-dies-jail-cell-fines/
This one really is something. I had not read about this before. It really turns my stomach ..
....right here in the good old USA...
Horse with no Name
(33,956 posts)"She was reportedly on medication for high blood pressure and other health issues. Prison officials said they issued no medication to DeNino before her death, however. "
WovenGems
(776 posts)When things go horribly wrong CYA!!!!!
sakabatou
(42,083 posts)I hope they get sued.
Dustlawyer
(10,493 posts)This is not the 1st or 2nd time I have read of someone dying because the jailers did not give their charges their medication. If I ever go to jail (perish the thought) I would be in a world of trouble if I did not get my meds either!
Utterly senseless death!
FarPoint
(12,209 posts)When a new inmate is booked in, medical does an assessment wherein the intake history notes any medical conditions or detects any clinical abnormalities like elevated BP. There are standard house orders for initial elevated BP...and a physician is just a phone call away to secure orders. Apparently these basic standards were omitted.
4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)Nice Priorities we have here.
\
Taxpayers Picking Up Rehab Bill for Affluenza Teen Who Killed 4 While Driving Drunk
Read more: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=242364#ixzz34RPYSqap
If the parents are paying only $1,170 per month and the cost is actually $715 per day taxpayers are subsidizing $20,280 per month of the wealthy familys billand paying for the disgusting actions of a teenager who, as of yet, has not learned to take responsibility for his actions. In other words, the parents are only paying for about two days per month for his treatment at the lavish North Texas State Hospital
Read more: http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=242364#ixzz34RPdprvR
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)It's absolutely disgusting.
dem in texas
(2,672 posts)There is more and more of this happening all over the US. This one is an extreme example. Why couldn't she have done community service to work off her fines? I read somewhere that this is because of the "For Profit/Private" jails that are taking over in so many areas. My ex-daughter-in-law who is bi-polar, was jailed for several charges like shop-lifting and driving drunk. She was allowed to work off her sentence by taking some classes and doing community service. She also got medical treatment for her bi-polar condition.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)even have time for community service. When I was younger I was working six days a week and usually 16 hours a day (two jobs). I barely had time to eat.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)why do you think their(we) are called working 'poor'.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)All I could think of was Victorian England, and the moral deficits everywhere in the society.
catbyte
(34,174 posts)Despicable. NOBODY should serve jail time for owing money. Being in debt is not a crime. Goddamnit.
Stuart G
(38,365 posts)And the judge who put her in jail could have continued the case till she brought in evidence of her poverty. Perhaps the asshole judge could have talked to the other judge. He seemed to understand poverty somewhat better..eh
Beacool
(30,244 posts)Their truancy rate is now going to be close to 100%.
Massacure
(7,498 posts)It seems to me like the judge gave this lady a more than fair deal. The question I have is why she died. The corrections system may have failed her, but the court system did not.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)If only she could get a job that paid that well. Maybe she should have opened her own jail?
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Seems to be a lot of that going around.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)The current judicial system did not fail her because that system is about process and not justice. That needs to change.
Response to sulphurdunn (Reply #15)
Name removed Message auto-removed
TiredOfNo
(52 posts)The $2000 debt would still have been due. She was put in jail to "teach her a lesson." She has to pay her fines and not having a job or any money is not an excuse.....
We are really are a sick nation.
surrealAmerican
(11,340 posts)It wouldn't even surprise me if they charge her children for those fines now.
Welcome to DU.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)Have you ever been in any amount of debt? Is it something that you feel we should jail people over? I can't believe someone on DU actually said this.
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)Why did her children not go to school? That would be helpful to know since that is the original reason for the fine and the two-day jail time and ultimately her death.
DebJ
(7,699 posts)Why have seven children when you can't feed six or five or four or three or two?
Feeding and schooling the two children I had was extremely difficult to do on my own.
To have had another child would have been cruel and irresponsible to the first two
(who I had while married to a man who later kind of lost his mind). Children aren't something
one collects like books or butterflies. They have needs.
If you can't even feed them, how in the world are you going to attend to their schooling?
If this was 1950 I wouldn't ask that question.
I just don't understand.
demigoddess
(6,640 posts)one day it will be because the republicans have done away with birth control, and abortion, if not already.
burnsei sensei
(1,820 posts)nt
yeoman6987
(14,449 posts)DebJ
(7,699 posts)is a lifelong perspective and process that begins at birth. It's not something that just happens,
not with so many children refusing to go. That is reflecting the culture the parent established, or
helped to establish.
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)Orrex
(63,086 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)am betting they are going to cost the state way more than $2000 a month to care for now. And more than likely these eight children will blame the state for what happened to their mother with good reason. Great going PA.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)Dead from debtor's prison.
Unbelievable.
Un-fucking-believable.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)are ever gunned down or beaten to death by the police.
Fantastic Anarchist
(7,309 posts)... and protected from criminal charges.
It encourages a war on the poor.
MosheFeingold
(3,051 posts)After the armed SWAT teams get enough practice on the poor, they'll move on to bigger fish to rob.
I am a more-or-less retired lawyer.
I've had plenty of wealthy clients have property confiscated by various police agencies simply because the police wanted it or they pissed off the wrong city council member.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)Where fewer big fish eat more small ones.
BumRushDaShow
(127,324 posts)(from the Reading Eagle)
http://readingeagle.com/news/article/son-of-woman-found-dead-in-berks-county-prison-cell-speaks-out&template=mobileart (there's a paywall)
Divernan
(15,480 posts)Thousands of people have been jailed over truancy fines in the county since 2000, and two in three of those jailed have been women, according to the AP. But the criminalization of poverty is a much broader national phenomenon, with court costs and fees magnifying the statutory penalties for a variety of minor infractions such that the financial penalty snowballs into an unpayable debt for low-income people.
The results, as catalogued in a year-long National Public Radio investigation, are staggering: a 19-year-old jailed for three days after catching a smallmouth bass during rock bass season, because he couldnt pay the fine; a homeless man sentenced to a year in jail over $2,600 in penalties incurred by shoplifting a $2 can of beer; a recovering drug user sent to jail three times for being unable to make payments on nearly $10,000 in court costs.
Criminal justice reform advocates and civil rights groups say these practices amount to a revival of the sort of debtors prisons that are supposed to be a relic of Colonial-era history. At the federal level, jailing someone for unpaid debt has been illegal since the 1830s. A Supreme Court decision 30 years ago reaffirmed that judges must determine that an offender is able to pay overdue fines before jailing her, but some states appear to be breaking with that requirement.
6000eliot
(5,643 posts)Isn't there a better way to get the kids to school?
dembotoz
(16,740 posts)making sure the kid is in school every day is harder than you think
turned out ok
kid graduated this past weekend.....
would not have liked to spend time in jail because he decided to skip
would not have been happy at all
handmade34
(22,755 posts)my youngest hated school for awhile
I never made him go when he didn't want to...
but.... he graduated from college with dual degree a couple years ago and is now working at a great place in Alaska for the summer with a great future ahead of him...
it would have been a shame to punish anyone
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)Over ten thousand in student loans, over twelve in medical, ten for a car, and more recently, two thousand owed to repair that same car (which I can't get back until I can pay it).
Being in debt sucks enough with just the reality of it. I realize that I borrowed money which I have to repay for school - but it would be nice if I could find a job that paid enough money to do that - eight dollars an hour doesn't go very far, even full time. Living with my parents at thirty can be kind of depressing, but in this economy, in this society, I must consider myself blessed to have a place to live at all. To not be starving, or living on the streets, or working in some prison.
My situation can be ugly some times - but this? This goes beyond ugly, it goes beyond terrible, I'm not sure there's really a word to describe it. In the great United States of America, the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave, a woman was imprisoned because she could not pay two thousand dollars in fines. Two thousand dollars. It's a lot of money for people like me, but it's not that much for someone like a judge, is it?
In prison - and now dead, because she couldn't pay two thousand dollars in truancy fines - that is, a system of mandatory (enforced) education. Her children have now lost their mother. This is our justice system? This shit happens in America? We can spend a billion dollars in a super pac to elect one politician over another, but a woman who can't pay two thousand dollars in truancy fines has to go to jail? What the fuck? Did we go to sleep and wake up in another Country? Have we reverted to the dark ages? Do Mitt Romney and his ilk now rule the world?
This story needs to be everywhere, read by everyone - so that we can see just how sick this Country has become.
There aren't words for this.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Thank you, david.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)liberalhistorian
(20,809 posts)supposed to mean??????????
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)kristopher
(29,798 posts)As Court Fees Rise, The Poor Are Paying The Price
http://www.npr.org/series/313986316/guilty-and-charged
Segments
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/21/313118629/supreme-court-ruling-not-enough-to-prevent-debtors-prisons
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/24/314866421/measures-aimed-at-keeping-people-out-of-jail-punish-the-poor
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/312455680/state-by-state-court-fees
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/19/310710716/profiles-of-those-forced-to-pay-or-stay
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/18/313618296/court-user-fees-bill-defendants-for-their-punishment
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/20/314138887/unpaid-court-fees-land-the-poor-in-21st-century-debtors-prisons
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/20/314293287/big-fees-for-the-big-easys-poorest-defendents
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/21/314607003/court-fees-drive-many-poor-defendants-underground
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/22/314875465/poor-people-can-pay-twice-after-committing-a-crime
http://www.npr.org/2014/06/04/318888275/facing-doubts-about-court-fines-lawmakers-take-questions-to-heart
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/22/314874232/the-history-of-electronic-monitoring-devices
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/29/316735545/why-your-right-to-a-public-defender-may-come-with-a-fee
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Stuart G
(38,365 posts)I just read this one, and am totally disgusted by the judges that made decisions that sent people to jail.. almost unbelievable ...
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/21/313118629/supreme-court-ruling-not-enough-to-prevent-debtors-prisons
RobinA
(9,878 posts)title and I thought, Only in PA. Sure enough...