Appleseed applauds efforts to curb illegally imposed criminal court fines, fees, and costs; Releases New Resource for Defense Attorneys
Two recent decisions by the Illinois Appellate Court, People v. Mullen and People v. Smith, reduced or eliminated certain court costs, fines, and fees imposed on people convicted of crimes in Cook County. These decisions criticized both “Illinois’s labyrinthine system of criminal fines and fees” and the failure of the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County to update its form order, which contains over 90 assessments and is used in thousands of cases each month, to accurately reflect the current law. The current version of the assessments form miscategorizes a number of assessments and erroneously states that some assessments are mandatory when they are in fact discretionary. Among other errors, the form imposes at least one “mandatory” fee that has actually been repealed.
Chicago Appleseed and the Chicago Council of Lawyers have been working since 2014 to promote reform in the area of court costs, fines, and fees. Our May 2016 report on criminal court assessments lays out the troubling and unfair consequences of funding our court system on the backs of Illinois’s most vulnerable communities. Last month, Appleseed and CCL’s joint Criminal Justice Advisory Committee released a practice guide for defense attorneys designed to help individuals lawyers ensure that court costs, fines, and fees are not unlawfully or unnecessarily imposed on their clients and that convicted people receive all appropriate pre-sentence credit toward fines.
Last week, the Cook County Public Defender distributed this practice guide to all of its Assistant Public Defenders in order to help ensure that only proper assessments are imposed on the Public Defender’s clients. Appleseed and the Council applaud Public Defender Amy Campanelli for taking action on this important issue, and we encourage private criminal defense attorneys to use the guide in their own practices and to the benefit of their clients—almost all of whom are currently being assessed court costs incorrectly upon conviction. Until a permanent legislative fix is reached regarding Illinois’ imposition of criminal court costs, fines, and fees, it is incumbent on criminal defense attorneys to fight the wrongful imposition of these onerous fees in individual cases.