Further thoughts on Florida's courts

Related to the post Xanthippas put up yesterday about Florida's courts sending people to jail for failure to pay court fees, here's our dialog about it:

Nat-Wu: First off, didn't we abolish debtors prison? What difference does it make that the "creditor" is the court? Second, if the idea is that these people are costing the court money, how does it make sense that when they owe money, you throw them in jail where they cost the taxpayer even more?

Xanthippas: Yes we did, unless you owe the courts apparently. And yes it's costing more money to enforce draconian punishment for unpaid fees, then to simply raise taxes to pay for a judicial system. An efficient judiciary cannot be expected to substantially rely upon fees to meet necessary operating expenses; requiring that means that fees for small-time offenses will be jacked up on the people who can least afford to pay them, and that they'll go to jail for something as stupid as a couple hundred bucks in fines that are 13 years old. But you can think cheapskate taxpayers and slimy politicians who are afraid to raise taxes for this situation.

Lest you get the wrong idea, I'm not against people paying fines for being caught committing crimes. I'm against them paying the courts for having to deal with them. Not that guilty people shouldn't be punished, but as Xanthippas pointed out, if the courts rely on these fees, the temptation would be great to jack them up with no regard for any real punitive motivation. Besides which, if someone is convicted of a crime which is essentially monetary in nature, such as unpaid parking or speeding tickets, if they pay for them eventually and pay a penalty on top of that for having ignored those fees, then what exactly are they paying the court for beyond that? Sounds kind of like double jeopardy to me; people being penalized twice for the same crime. And the objection goes further. As Xanthippas also pointed out, essentially all they're doing is penalizing taxpayers by sending people to jail when they don't pay their fees! That's a double-negative, as in, both the loss of fees and expenditure of tax money on a prisoner go in red ink. What sense does it make?

Afternoon Links

Things worth reading:

1. An earthquake in Italy is estimated to have killed a hundred people so far, and left tens of thousands more homeless.

2. Florida: bringing back debtor's prison (sort of.)

3. Turkey: President Obama visits Turkey, calls Turkey an important ally, speaks of resolving the conflict over the Armenian genocide. Turkish PM Erdogan tells us to accept the reality of Hamas.

4. Thirty-three Iraqis die in coordinated car bombings in and around Baghdad.

5. The brain: Researchers are working on ways of "editing" memory. Scientists have also concluded that the stress of being poor alters the brains of children.

6. Secretary of Defense Gates proposes to make cuts to several big-ticket defense items. To which I say, we'll see about that.

7. President Obama aims for a world free of nuclear weapons.

8. Millions of shelter animals die, while morons buy designer "hybrid" breeds raised in appalling conditions.

9. Sports: Can Brazil's talented soccer player Marta revive women's soccer in the U.S.? Speaking of soccer, FC Dallas has stunk it up in the first three games of the season, losing all three while giving up seven goals and scoring only two. The Dallas Mavericks, as is typical in this up and down season,lost to a woeful Memphis team with less than half their win total on Friday night and then blew out similarly struggling Phoenix on Sunday. They are now one win or one Phoenix loss away from wrapping up the eight seed in the playoffs, and still-amazingly-in the hunt for the seventh seed, which they can get with some help from Utah. And the Texas Rangers open their season today with a game at home against Cleveland.

Florida Adoption Ban Stricken Down

Arkansas voters may have succeeded in making sure there were less homes for foster kids, but a judge in Florida has stricken down the state's 31-year old ban on adoption by gays:

A judge on Tuesday overturned a strict Florida law that blocks gay people from adopting children, declaring there was no legal or scientific reason for sexual orientation alone to prohibit anyone from adopting.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman said the 31-year-old law violates equal protection rights for the children and their prospective gay parents, rejecting the state's arguments that there is "a supposed dark cloud hovering over homes of homosexuals and their children."

She noted that gay people are allowed to be foster parents in Florida. "There is no rational basis to prohibit gay parents from adopting," she wrote in a 53-page ruling.

"It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent," the judge wrote. "A child in need of love, safety and stability does not first consider the sexual orientation of his parent. The exclusion causes some children to be deprived of a permanent placement with a family that is best suited to their needs."

If only voters in other states could be so wise.

Proposition Update

My apologies for not keeping you updated last night on the various propositions of note; I simply had my hands full keeping up with various House and Senate races, and races here in Texas. That being said, here's where we stand this morning:

California:

Proposition 8 (defining marriage as between a man and a woman): Well, despite declarations that the proposition was both failing and passing, it remains too close to call this morning. 95% of precincts are reporting and "yes" leads by four percent but there's reluctance to call it until almost all votes are counted.

Proposition 2 (requires improvements in the treatment of factory farmed animals): this measure passed easily, by a whopping 27%.

Colorado:

Amendment 48: a measure that would defined "personhood" from the moment of conception was utterly destroyed, losing by 50%.

South Dakota:

Initiated Measure 11: a less restrictive version of the abortion ban that failed in 2006, this measure also goes down in flames.

Arkansas:

Proposed Initiative 1: a measure to ban unmarried couples (gays, that is) from adopting or serving as foster parents passes. Arkansas children suffer.

Arizona:

Proposition 102: bans gay marriage; passed.

Florida:

Marriage Protection Amendment: even though gay marriage is already illegal in Florida, this measure changes the constitution just to be on the safe side (you can never be too careful with those gays, I guess.) It passed with 62% of the vote.

So the Christian moralists gain no traction on the issue of abortion, but apparently appeals to discrimination against gays still work. I sincerely hope change in that regard is not too far down the road.