Tennessee county agrees to quit jailing debtors

By WOODY BAIRD / Associated Press Writer

MEMPHIS — Lauderdale County officials agreed in federal court Wednesday to stop running what amounts to a debtors' prison.

The agreement stems from a lawsuit by two men who say they were arrested or threatened with arrest over debts that can only be collected through civil court proceedings.

The county's general sessions court issued arrest warrants for Lester C. Smith and William M. Robinson for failure to pay $200 each in court costs from unrelated misdemeanor cases.

Under state law, court costs are civil debts for which a debtor cannot be jailed. Federal Judge J. Daniel Breen said such arrests violate the 13th Amendment ban on slavery and involuntary servitude.

Robert Hutton, a Memphis lawyer who filed the lawsuit, said the county routinely used the threat of jail to get money from people too poor to pay civil judgments.

"They're suit-proof," Hutton said. "They can't garnish your paycheck, but if I'm going to throw you in jail until you pay it, you're going to find a way to get that money even if you have to go without food."

Defense lawyer Kemper Durand said county officials failed to realize their debt collecting was improper until the lawsuit was filed.

"They immediately sought to correct the problem," Durand said.

Smith and Robinson were awarded damages of $1,000 each, but the main purpose of the lawsuit, Hutton said, was to force the county to end its practice of jailing people because of civil debts.

Besides Lauderdale County, Judge Janice Craig, Court Clerk Richard Jennings and Sheriff Louis Craig were defendants in the lawsuit.

The county was ordered to dismiss any outstanding arrest warrants over unpaid court costs. "They've got warrants out back to '97," Hutton said.

Hutton represents clients with two other federal court complaints against Lauderdale, a rural county of about 27,000 residents 50 miles north of Memphis.

Christopher Lee Scallions, 24, seeks $100 million because of a beating by two Lauderdale County sheriff's deputies that left him paralyzed from the neck down.

A lawsuit filed last month says Scallions was pulled from a car he was riding in and beaten with fists and a flashlight after a companion made a comment that angered the deputies.

Scallions is permanently crippled, the lawsuit says, and will need medical and nursing care for the rest of his life.

Hutton, who sued the Lauderdale County Jail alleging inmate abuse in 1993, also wants the county held in contempt of court.

A court order from the lawsuit bars jailers from using tear gas or chemical sprays to punish inmates. The county built a new jail in 1996.

Hutton's petition contends jailers have used tear gas and a chemical spray to punish at least two unruly inmates, both of whom he describes as mentally ill.

 

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