Opinion ID: 1360636
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: ability to repay

Text: After reviewing James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128, 92 S.Ct. 2027, 32 L.Ed.2d 600 (1972), Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U.S. 40, 94 S.Ct. 2116, 40 L.Ed.2d 642 (1974), and their progeny, the majority concludes that ability to repay is essential to a recoupment plan only when the defendant may be incarcerated for failing to repay. This interpretation neglects the Alaska Constitution. Even if the federal constitution does not require that ability to repay be considered, [2] such consideration must be allowed under the Alaska Constitution. [3] In ordinary civil matters, of course, it is entirely permissible to enter judgment against a debtor regardless of the debtor's ability to pay. The majority repeatedly insists that a Rule 39 recoupment judgment has no correctional consequences and may therefore be treated as an ordinary civil judgment, without considering ability to repay. This assertion is incorrect. A civil judgment entered against an indigent defendant who has just been convicted of a crime can have distinctly different consequences than one entered against an ordinary debtor: The indigent defendant who is found guilty is uniquely disadvantaged... . A criminal conviction usually limits employment opportunities. This is especially true where a prison sentence has been served. It is in the interest of society and the State that such a defendant, upon satisfaction of the criminal penalties imposed, be afforded a reasonable opportunity of employment, rehabilitation and return to useful citizenship. James v. Strange, 407 U.S. at 139, 92 S.Ct. at 2033. The unique impact that a civil judgment can have on a convicted offender is plainly a correctional consequence in that it directly relates to the sentencing goal of rehabilitation. This sentencing goal finds express recognition in our state constitution. Under Alaska's Constitution, the principles of reformation and necessity of protecting the public constitute the touchstones of penal administration. State v. Chaney, 477 P.2d 441, 444 (Alaska 1970) (footnote omitted). Article I, section 12, of the Alaska Constitution declares that Penal administration shall be based on the principle of reformation and upon the need for protecting the public. Multiple goals are encompassed within these broad constitutional standards. Within the ambit of this constitutional phraseology are found the objectives of rehabilitation of the offender into a noncriminal member of society, isolation of the offender from society to prevent criminal conduct during the period of confinement, deterrence of the offender himself after his release from confinement or other penological treatment, as well as deterrence of other members of the community who might possess tendencies toward criminal conduct similar to that of the offender, and community condemnation of the individual offender, or in other words, reaffirmation of societal norms for the purpose of maintaining respect for the norms themselves. Chaney, 477 P.2d at 444. In some cases, entering a recoupment judgment against a defendant who is unable to repay will actively interfere with the sentencing goal of rehabilitation. This is essentially the point that we made in Karr v. State, 686 P.2d 1192 (Alaska 1984), when we rejected an argument for allowing sentencing courts to order the payment of restitution as a condition of probation for convicted offenders who have no foreseeable ability to pay: If restitution is ordered in an amount that is clearly impossible for the offender to pay, the offender's rehabilitation will be inhibited and not furthered. If the offender is haled into court for nonpayment of restitution ... or if the offender petitions the court ... to avoid this sanction, his reintegration into society will be disrupted. Also, an offender might simply give up and make no payments at all if the restitution ordered is clearly impossible to pay. This could result in the offender's incarceration ... or in his fleeing the jurisdiction to avoid this sanction, neither of which would further the dual goals behind restitution. Id. at 1197 (footnote omitted). [4] Although the dangers we adverted to in Karr were clearly magnified in the context of that case by the possibility of incarceration as a consequence of nonpayment, the absence of incarceration as a potential consequence in a recoupment situation merely reduces the extent of these dangers; it does not dispel them. In some circumstances, it will be predictable that the pendency of a judgment for a sum that would be impossible to pay might be disruptive of a defendant's reintegration into society and might encourage the defendant to simply give up. When a court foresees this risk and deems rehabilitation to be a prominent sentencing goal in the case before it, the interests of the defendant and society alike will be served if the court forbears entering the recoupment judgment. [5] Given the central role of reformation as a touchstone of penal administration under the Alaska Constitution, I would hold that our state constitution forbids a recoupment plan that provides courts no authority to engage in (and indigent defendants no right to request) prejudgment consideration of ability to repay.