The state of Virginia used to threaten residents with revocation of their driver’s license if they failed or refused to pay court fines or fees. Any fee or fine, regardless of the offense. The law has been changed, but not before a lawsuit was filed, and the plaintiffs were left holding the bag full of legal fees.
“In July 2016, a lawsuit was filed against the DMV, alleging that the automatic suspensions violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of due process and equal protection.
If you were too economically challenged to afford to pay a fee or fine, you would also lose your ability to drive legally.
The complaint charged that many people lost their licenses through being too poor to pay fines, “effectively depriving them of reliable, lawful transportation necessary to get to and from work, take children to school, keep medical appointments, care for ill or disabled family members, or, paradoxically, to meet their financial obligations to the courts,” Rutherford explained.
The state legislature changed the law while the case meandered through the legal system. The Department of Motor Vehicles could no longer revoke licenses on these grounds, so it claimed it could no longer be held responsible for any violations of rights or the court costs required to regain them. The Legislature fixed it. We’ll be on our way.
Not so fast, says the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“If the government is allowed to avoid the financial liabilities associated with violating the Constitution, it will violate the Constitution for as long as it can get away with it,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of “Battlefield America: The War on the American People.”
“Such a practice cripples the ability of the citizenry, especially the poor and vulnerable, to effectively seek protection from the courts and hold the government accountable.”
I am reminded of the City of Nashua and Laurie Ortolano’s ongoing battle concerning Right to Know requests. She asks for public documents. The city does everything it can not to provide them. She brings them to court, and it’s expensive. Laurie happens to have the means to hold the Mayor and City accountable. Still, most people have neither the resources, the patience, or the hours required to wait out the expensive crapstorm the bureaucracy is prepared to bring at taxpayer expense.
To them, money is no object. They want what they want, and to hell with the rest of it. And since it’s not their money, why would they care?
In most instances, they don’t. And quite often, insurance covers the costs, but not always. Oberlin College famously lost a lawsuit filed by Gibson’s Bakery, resulting in a settlement amounting to just over 36 million dollars. Oberlin had played fast and loose with one of its pet Woke-a-sarus, whose direct action resulted in a defamation suit the College lost. Their insurers are refusing to reimburse the Liberal Arts school, which, regardless of the outcome of their lawsuit to get that money, will likely have trouble with coverage and rising costs.
They’ll pass them along to the wealthy parents of students who attend in the tuition, but repeated court losses could make it difficult to buy coverage.
Municipalities rarely find themselves in that situation. The well or “revenue” is unlimited – in their minds – and it is easy to blame one persistent citizen (like Ortolano) for increased costs (paying unnecessary court and legal fees) when the real problem is the government’s refusal to follow the law.
The 4th Circuit has handed down a ruling, while different in some respects, that touches the foundation of the common problem. The government will always try to punish you to its advantage and then use itself as an excuse not to pay for the trouble they created.
In the Virginia Case (Stinnie V. Holcomb), the ‘State’ didn’t escape the cost of its cavalier misfeasance. The court agreed with The Rutherford Institute, which “warned that allowing the DMV to avoid fiscal accountability would encourage further constitutional mischief by the government.”
Not that one case in one Circuit Court, or even the highest court, will slow the roll of every deep-state stooge from inside the beltway to your backwater berg. But it’s a start.
HT | WND
