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State Citation Description/Statute Name Question Brief answer Language from the opinion When does the case apply?
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Pennsylvania 10 Pa. D. & C. 390, 392 (1927) Pennsylvania-Attorney General opinion What authority do county or municipal courts have to set fines or fees? Counties and cities may pass ordinances regulating traffic and may provide financial penalties
It is, therefore, the opinion of this department that cities, boroughs, incorporated towns and townships may lawfully pass ordinances providing for the regulation of traffic by means of traffic officers,
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semaphores, traffic-control lights or other signaling devices on any portion of the highways within their proper jurisdiction where traffic is heavy or continuous. In such cases, the municipal law-making bodies are to be the judges as to where such traffic policemen, semaphores or other signaling devices or traffic control lights shall be maintained. In addition, such municipalities may regulate or prohibit parking or prohibit other than one-way traffic upon certain highways within their respective jurisdiction, and they may regulate the use of highways by processions or assemblages. In such ordinances, the penalties provided may be a fine of not more than fifty ($50) dollars, to be collected by summary conviction in the manner provided by section 1216 of the act. Such fines belong to the municipality for the construction, repair and maintenance of the highways thereof.
Fines and fees
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Pennsylvania 14 Pa. D. & C. 205, 207 (1930) Pennsylvania-Attorney General opinion Other applicable opinions
1. In Philadelphia, if fines or penalties are collected by magistrates, your department does not have either the power or the duty to demand that they be turned over to you for
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payment into the State Treasury. Such fines and penalties are clearly payable to the County of Philadelphia. However, we desire to point out, parenthetically, that magistrates may collect fines and penalties only if and when the legislature has expressly given them jurisdiction to do so. Otherwise, they can merely hold the defendants for trial in the Quarter Sessions or other criminal courts of record. 2. On the other hand, fines and penalties collected by the courts of record in Philadelphia are payable into the State Treasury through your department, if there is legislation distinctly providing that the fines shall be paid into the State Treasury. 3. Outside of Philadelphia, your department has authority to collect for payment into the State Treasury any fines or penalties, whether imposed by courts of record or courts not of record, in all cases in which the legislature has provided that such fines and penalties shall be paid into the State Treasury. However, in the absence of specific direction to this effect, the fines and penalties are payable into the respective county treasuries, if they were collected by the criminal as distinguished from the civil courts. 4. In all cases in which fines and penalties are collected by administrative agencies of the state government without any specific direction by the legislature as to the disposition to be made of the moneys collected, it is the duty of your department to collect the amounts of the fines and penalties and pay them into the State Treasury. 5. Whenever penalties are imposed by law and the collection thereof is committed to either the Department of Justice or any other administrative agency of the state government and such penalties are collected by civil suit, the amounts recovered are payable into the State Treasury, whether or not the act imposing the penalties specifically so provides. There is neither constitutional nor statutory provision to the contrary, and the rule which prevails in the absence of specific direction to the contrary is that moneys collected by a state department, with or without the aid of the civil courts, is payable into the State Treasury.
Fines and fees
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Virginia 2000 Va. Op. Att'y. Gen. (2000) Costs and fines dischargeable in bankruptcy Other applicable opinions
"Criminal costs, which may or may not be contingent upon sentence but are associated with conviction, and traffic fines are nondischargeable in Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceedings. Debt for restitution or
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criminal fine included in criminal sentence is nondischargeable in Chapter 13 bankruptcy; criminal fines not contingent upon sentence, traffic fines arising from traffic infractions, and civil traffic fines are dischargeable in Chapter 13 bankruptcies."
Enforcement
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Washington Wash. Att'y Gen. Op. 1993 NO. 11 (1993) Ability to pay - considered at imposition and collection of fines and fees Should ability to pay be considered when imposing fines or fees or only when collecting fines or fees? They must be considered both when imposing and collecting fines and fees
[A] county considering an ordinance authorizing a court to impose a multiple booking fee as part of a criminal sentence should heed constitutional considerations relating to the offender's ability to
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pay the fee. Some statutes providing for the repayment of costs incurred on behalf of a criminal defendant, also known as recoupment statutes, have been challenged as unconstitutional. The courts generally have upheld these statutes, provided that they contain certain safeguards. As set forth in Fuller v. Oregon, 417 U.S. 40, 40 L.Ed.2d 642, 94 S.Ct. 2116 (1974), and summarized in State v. Earls, 51 Wn.App. 192, 195–96, 752 P.2d 402 (1988), the safeguards are:(1) The requirement of repayment must not be mandatory;(2) Repayment may be imposed only upon convicted defendants;(3) Repayment may only be ordered if the defendant is or will be able to pay;(4) The financial resources of the defendant must be taken into consideration;(5) A repayment obligation may not be imposed if it appears there is no likelihood the defendant's indigency will end;(6) The convicted person must be permitted to petition the court for remission of the payment of costs or any unpaid portion thereof;(7) The convicted person cannot be held in contempt for failure to repay if the default was not attributable to an intentional refusal to obey the court order or a failure to make a good faith effort to make repayment.
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Washington Wash. Att'y Gen. Op. 1993 NO. 11 (1993) Authority to set fines/fees What authority do county or municipal courts have to set fines or fees? Counties are given extensive freedoms to set fines and fees for municipal violations, but cannot do so in fields in which the state preempts
Counties have broad authority under article 11, section 11 of the state constitution to act in furtherance of their police power. That section provides: “Any county, city, town or township
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may make and enforce within its limits all such local police, sanitary and other regulations as are not in conflict with general laws.” The State Supreme Court has described this provision as follows: This is a direct delegation of the police power as ample within its limits as that possessed by the legislature itself. It requires no legislative sanction for its exercise so long as the subject-matter is local, and the regulation reasonable and consistent with the general laws. Bellingham v. Schampera, 57 Wn.2d 106, 109, 356 P.2d 292 (1960); see also Brown v. Yakima, 116 Wn.2d 556, 559, 807 P.2d 353 (1991).Under this provision, counties may enact ordinances regarding “all those measures which bear a reasonable and substantial relation to promotion of the general welfare of the people.” State v. Seattle, 94 Wn.2d 162, 165, 615 P.2d 461 (1980). County ordinances prescribing local offenses and punishments for them would constitute police power measures of the county under article 11, section 11 of the Washington Constitution. Such county ordinances may not, however, “conflict” with state laws. The courts have interpreted this to mean that counties may not legislate in a particular area when the state has preempted the field, or when the county legislation and state legislation on the same subject cannot be harmonized. Brown, 116 Wn.2d at 559.
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Washington See answer for 8 above Washington-Attorney General opinion What authority does the state supreme court have to impose binding state-wide rules on the imposition or collection of fees and fines? See answer for 8 above See answer for 8 above
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Washington Not answered Washington-Attorney General opinion Under what circumstances does a conflict of interest in the imposition or enforcement of court debt violate state law? Not answered Not answered