Court Opinion

ID: 9856659
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 06:54:35.774257+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:40:16.707955
License: Public Domain

NEELY, Justice,
dissenting:
I dissent because the majority rule leaves no room for a court to question the financial priorities of an “indigent” defendant. Once the defendant signs a pauper’s affidavit, he is automatically granted the right to an appeal bond on his own recognizance.
In the real world, every individual has his own financial priorities. First for almost everyone are expenses for shelter, food, clothing and transportation to and *458from work (if there is a job) and to the grocery. These are the necessities of life. After these expenses, if there is money left, some will spend it on a television or to go to the movies, others will spend it on furniture or. nice clothes, and others will spend it on alcohol and tobacco. Many defendants who themselves are technically indigent can get help from family or friends.1 My concern is that courts not be last on this list of priorities. If this is permitted, it makes a mockery of our municipal courts and will flood our circuit courts with trials de novo which do not necessarily have any merit.
The bond requirement for an appeal to circuit court serves two purposes. Most directly, it is designed to ensure the once-convicted defendant’s appearance in the appellate court. Indirectly, the bond requirement makes it less likely that a defendant will take an appeal that is totally lacking in merit. For a working man of limited means, posting an appeal bond and missing work for the appeal itself are not likely done unless the defendant feels he has some basis for the appeal. However, a defendant who makes less money or receives government assistance, and who takes the pauper’s oath, has but to sign his name to perfect an appeal. What defendant of any intelligence will not follow a path of least resistance and take an appeal, regardless of its basis? And how seriously will defendants, particularly professional defendants, treat proceedings in municipal courts when they know they automatically have another free shot? We must strike a balance so that indigents are not denied equal protection due to their poverty, but with due regard for the needs of the administration of justice and the fair treatment of non-indigent defendants of modest means.
In this case, when the defendant’s liberty was at stake, his family found the means to post his bond. Yet when it came time to post an appeal bond, the defendant insists he has no access to funds for the bond.
I do not believe that the “surety deemed sufficient” clause of the appeal bond statute should automatically be deemed to mean personal recognizance in every case where the defendant has filed a pauper’s affidavit. Rather, after a conviction, I would require the judge below to make an inquiry into defendant’s means, including family sources, and into his financial priorities. The posting of an appeal bond should come after the necessities discussed supra, but before any other voluntary expenses.

. Should an eighteen year old with wealthy parents be allowed to claim indigency and force the state to bear the cost of his appeal?