Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School
50-State Criminal Justice Debt Reform Builder Bringing transparency to areas of significant legal complexity.
50-State Criminal Justice Debt Reform Builder Bringing transparency to areas of significant legal complexity.
Case Law
Keyword search across all of the laws in the states. Subject-area tabs above allow you to narrow results. Click the advanced search for further refinement.
Every law can be saved to the Reform Builder
When does this apply
| State | Citation | Question | Brief answer | Language from the opinion | When does the case apply? | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Add to Dashboard
|
Arizona | Hughes v. Jorgenson, 203 Ariz. 71, 74, 50 P.3d 821, 824 (2002) |
Under state constitutional or statutory law, under what circumstances will the imposition or enforcement of fees or fines create conflicts of interest for courts, police departments, probation departments, or other + See morelaw enforcement agencies?
|
Arizona law recognizes that a conflict of interest might arise where an officer or the court has a pecuniary or proprietary interest in the actions of an agency. |
"[T]o violate the conflict of interest statute, a public official must have a non-speculative, non-remote pecuniary or proprietary interest in the decision at issue. The statutes require public officials to + See moredisclose potential conflicts and, in most instances, to then refrain from acting on issues on which the conflict exists"
|
Enforcement |
|
Add to Dashboard
|
Arkansas |
Drain v. State, 10 Ark. App. 338, 664 S.W.2d 484 (1984), citing Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983); see also Ark. Code + See moreAnn. § 5-4-203(a)(3) and (4) (Supp. 1995).
|
Imprisonment of an indigent defendant for failure to pay a fine violates the defendants equal protection rights. |
This statute basically codifies the principles established by the cases of Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395, 91 S.Ct. 668, 28 L.Ed.2d 130 (1971), and Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. + See more235, 90 S.Ct. 2018, 26 L.Ed.2d 586 (1970), both of which stand *341 for the proposition that a sentence to imprisonment for nonpayment of a fine works an invidious discrimination against indigent defendants in violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
|
Enforcement |