Thursday, March 05, 2015

Fighting unconstitutional taxes disguised as court fees

Emily DePrang at the Texas Observer has filed a report on former GOP Court of Criminal Appeals candidate Jani Wood's laudable crusade against unfair and unconstitutional court fees. Her latest victory proved the state's "DNA record fee" is an unconstitutional tax. Read the whole thing.

NPR last year ran an extensive series on court fees, see:
See also prior Grits coverage of Ms. Wood's court-cost litigation:

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sadly, all too consistent with the Ferguson report: poor people are criminalized and turned into "revenue stream." And we have a public education "system" that seems determined not to encourage young people to question authority - I'd love to see defendants begin to ask questions in court about "what's that for and where does the money go?"