NYT: A Billionaire and a Nurse Shouldn’t Pay the Same Fine for Speeding

The New York Times ^ | 03/15/18 | Alec Schierenbeck

[Simon Green]

If Mark Zuckerberg and a janitor who works at Facebook’s headquarters each received a speeding ticket while driving home from work, they’d each owe the government the same amount of money. Mr. Zuckerberg wouldn’t bat an eye.

The janitor is another story.

For people living on the economic margins, even minor offenses can impose crushing financial obligations, trapping them in a cycle of debt and incarceration for nonpayment. In Ferguson, Mo., for example, a single $151 parking violation sent a black woman struggling with homelessness into a seven-year odyssey of court appearances, arrest warrants and jail time connected to her inability to pay.

Across America, one-size-fits-all fines are the norm, which I demonstrate in an article for the University of Chicago Law Review. Where judges do have wiggle room to choose the size of a fine, mandatory minimums and maximums often tie their hands. Some states even prohibit consideration of a person’s income. And when courts are allowed to take finances into account, they frequently fail to do so.

Other places have saner methods. Finland and Argentina, for example, have tailored fines to income for almost 100 years. The most common model, the “day fine,” scales sanctions to a person’s daily wage. A small offense like littering might cost a fraction of a day’s pay. A serious crime might swallow a month’s paycheck. Everyone pays the same proportion of their income.

For a justice system committed to treating like offenders alike, scaling fines to income is a matter of basic fairness. Making everyone pay the same sticker price is evenhanded on the surface, but only if you ignore the consequences of a fine on the life of the person paying. The flat fine threatens poor people with financial ruin while letting rich people break the law without meaningful repercussions.

[Architect of Avalon]

That is true, however, I predict that it will get blatant, with some taxes and fees that are specifically targeted at men, with women being exempt.

[gleneagle]

The wealthy in Finland hire drivers who pay the minimum fine.

[shanover]

Great points all. We will agree where this is all going.

[Kickass Conservative]

I’m going to run down to the Ferrari Dealer and see what deal he can give me due to my dire Financial situation.

[IronJack]

So much for “equal protection under the law.”

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

“Equal protection” is obviously not a thing at the slimes.

[Vendome]

No

[a fool in paradise]

So Jack Johnson should've paid much higher penalties when he was racing about in his car?

Wouldn't they be saying that's "racist"?

[LeoTDB69]

Yup, and let’s say two people commit the same crime, say one is 25 and the older is 70. The younger should serve a much longer sentence than the 70-year-old as he has so many more years of life left.

Such twisted thinking can take one almost anywhere.

[The Cuban]

Idiocy? That was the standard under English Common law and undergirded the 8th amendment

[Manly Warrior]

The comments are fine, but the real outcome is simply,”why would anyone want to go through the trouble to get wealthy when a sliding scale makes us all equal in the end? “

[The Cuban]

Therr is nothing unequal abiut such a process.

[anton]

How about a welfare cheat. How much should they pay?

[grumpygresh]

..... So far.

[LeoTDB69]

“And the rich should pay $150.00 for a loaf of bread and the janitor should pay $.50.”

Hmm. Thinking seriously about opening a grocery store (in a wealthy neighborhood). How much would this loaf of bread cost from the supplier?

[seawolf101]

With those ridiculos taxes rich people will simply move someplace else. Once the rich people leave who are they going to tax?

[EDINVA]

If Mr. Zuckerbeg and his company’s janitor ram into another car at 70mph, killing a family of five, the family of five are equally dead.

[Mark]

As the first sentence somewhat explains, the idea of a traffic fine is to deter the person from the bad driving-—nothing like a parking ticket, but speeding, reckless driving, it makes some sense. The janitor is deterred from speeding, but not the rich guy. It takes a lot more money to deter him. Or maybe make the rich guy attend traffic school, which should help to deter.

[Islander7]

Well, Alec, I’m sure you’d be just fine with a 40% nuisance on ‘journalists’. Makes perfect sense.

[KC_for_Freedom]

Your post is intriguing. Just finished watching Levin with the President of Hillsdale College. He was telling us that the modern progressive type of education is attempting to turn all of our laws into this kind of social science reasoning. Instead of our ideas coming from “the laws of Nature and Nature’s god” they come from our own form of social science and whatever modern ideology is currently popular.

I has a violin instructor years ago who charged a lawyer more per hour than I was paying. He did not mind this because he did not like lawyers, ( I was a high school teacher at the time) and he could use this way to get even. Then a plumber told me he asked for and received a much higher hourly fee when working for a wealthy family than for a poor family. This has been going on for a long time. Only now the movement believes they have the power to make it the new law of the land.