Opinion ID: 755348
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Fifth Amendment Equal Protection6

Text: 31 Dean and Dubose argue that the MVRA violates the principle of equal protection of the law under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. 7 They contend that, the MVRA necessarily leads to invidious discrimination based on wealth, given that wealthy individuals will be able to pay off their restitution obligations, while impecunious individuals ... will be forced to bear the social disadvantages which adhere to a debtor. 32 Although the government responds that the MVRA's protection for indigent defendants nullifies these claims, nothing in the MVRA requires courts to protect indigent defendants--it merely allows them to do so. 33 The constitutional standard, however, is nondiscrimination with regard to indigents. The MVRA meets this standard. Under Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235, 242, 90 S.Ct. 2018, 26 L.Ed.2d 586 (1970), and Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395, 398, 91 S.Ct. 668, 28 L.Ed.2d 130 (1971), indigents cannot be subject to increased imprisonment or a period of imprisonment beyond the statutory maximum solely on the basis of their indigency. Accordingly, an indigent defendant cannot be resentenced under the MVRA solely on the basis of an inability to pay restitution. See 18 U.S.C. § 3614(c). Moreover, the statute meets the Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 674, 103 S.Ct. 2064, 76 L.Ed.2d 221 (1983), requirement that a defendant cannot be resentenced for mere failure to pay a fine unless it can be proved that the defendant did not make bona fide efforts to pay the fine or that alternative forms of punishment would not meet the state's interests in punishment and deterrence. See 18 U.S.C. § 3614(b). 34 Defendants' Fifth Amendment claims therefore fail. 35