Court Opinion

ID: 9457960
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:39:23.009875+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:35.604976
License: Public Domain

COLEMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I acknowledge the duty of following the decisions of the Supreme Court. Of course, those of the Supreme Court of California are not binding on this Court.
The United States Supreme Court has not yet passed on the situation now before us. I would not go beyond what that Court has already decided. Indeed, in this particular field I would hope, with deference, that some prior decisions may yet be reconsidered.
I gather that the practical effect of the instant decision, to which I now dissent, is to establish as a rule of Constitutional law:
“Persons who have funds may be imprisoned until they pay their fines; those without funds may not be so imprisoned, even if the law prescribed an alternative penalty.”
Those with funds are thus denied equal treatment under the law. I would suppose that it is as much a denial of equal protection to discriminate against a person because he has money as it would be to discriminate against one who is poor. I remember the terms of the judicial oath to “do equal right to the poor and to the rich”, 28 U.S.C., § 453.
As a practical matter, collecting fines on the installment plan is a delusion. Ask any experienced installment collector.
My basic objection to this decision is that once again the courts, the instru-mentalities of the law, deliver another solar plexus to law enforcement. No indigent can be convicted of the usual misdemeanor unless it be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that he voluntarily (wilfully) committed it. That being so, I do not read the Constitution to require that any person, I care not who he is, must be given a license to violate the law on the installment plan.
*731Even if it were reasonably possible to keep up with the whereabouts and pecuniary status of a misdemeanant, he can never be penalized if he chooses to stay clear of the money needed to pay his fine. Thus it turns out, after all, that there is no equal justice under the law. One man is required to pay his fine; another is not.
Suppose one acquires the funds but then refuses or neglects to pay. He has the money in the morning but he spends it before night. He is still an indigent. May he then be put in jail for non-payment? If so, upon what kind of procedure?
It is useless to say that the remedy is to prescribe jail sentences for all misdemeanors. Convictions would be almost impossible of attainment under such harsh conditions. Moreover, there are not enough jails to hold them all if they were convicted. In the natural course of current events, I expect soon to see the claim that imprisonment for petty misdemeanors is cruel and unusual punishment. I wonder what the decision will be when that case arises. Would it be cruel and unusual to put a mother in jail for twenty-four hours for running a stop sign or driving at 80 in a 60 mile zone? That would be as reasonable as some other decisions which have been rendered in this area by some courts.
The convicted misdemeanants now before us knew, or were charged with knowing, when they committed the offenses of which they were convicted that the law permitted either fine or imprisonment. That did not deter them. They should be required to keep their voluntary bargain. For them it is a good thing that I do not have the sole power to decide their case. I would unhesitatingly require them to pay the fine or serve the time.
I respectfully dissent.