The plaintiffs alleged that this deprivation of liberty violated the constitutional prohibition against wealth-based detention and discriminated against them on the basis of their indigence. Consequently, the plaintiffs faced the prospect, and in some instances were, jailed for up to 10 days. They alleged that judges set bail for probationers alleged violations without an inquiry into their ability to pay. Individuals who were supervised by the companies had lost homes, jobs, and personal belongings, suffered severe medical problems they had gone without food, clothing, and medicine for themselves and their children to pay for the escalating supervision fees that the companies demanded under threat of arrest and jailing.Īdditionally, the plaintiffs argued that Giles County's process for setting bail violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendants violated RICO by acting as an extortionate enterprise focused on creating financial hardship. They also alleged that this created a conflict of interest: purportedly neutral probation officers were financially inclined to impose higher costs on indigent probationers. The companies' supervision of probation payments, according to the plaintiffs, consisted of charging monthly fees' the probationers often could not afford, repeatedly making threats of jail time to induce payment, and humiliating supervision of drug testing. In this role, the defendants allegedly maximized their own profits for the purposes of collecting court debts by adding additional fees and surchages on top of the existing debt owed by probationers. The plaintiffs claimed that CPS and PSI, through their contract with Tennessee Correctional Services, acted as "for profit probation officers" overseeing the collection of fines and other court debts on behalf of Giles County. The case was originally assigned to Chief Judge Waverly D. The plaintiffs, represented by the Civil Rights Corps and private counsel, sought declaratory, injunctive, and monetary relief, as well as attorneys’ fees and costs. (PSI), all under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and 42 U.S.C. The plaintiffs sued the Tennessee Correctional Services, and two for-profit probation companies, Community Probation Services (CPS) and Progressive Sentencing, Inc. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. On April 23, 2018, five residents of Tennessee filed this putative class action lawsuit in the U.S.
The plaintiffs, represented by the Civil Rights Corps and private counsel, sough…
0 kommentar(er)
