Court Cases

Both the Superior Court and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that sentencing courts have the statutory and rules-based authority to reduce or waive court costs at the time of sentencing if a defendant is unable to afford to pay those costs. However, sentencing courts have no obligation to exercise that authority if they choose not to. The result is broader flexibility for courts to avoid having to burden indigent defendants with unaffordable costs.

On January 5, 2021, the ACLU of Pennsylvania, the law firm of Langer, Grogan & Diver P.C., and Seth Kreimer, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, filed a class action lawsuit against the Montgomery County court administration for illegally charging defendants duplicative court costs.

After being illegally jailed by a magisterial district judge, the defendant was able to obtain release through a writ of habeas corpus from a common pleas court. In the judicial ethics complaint that followed - which resulted in the judge being sanctioned - the defendant set forth the nine separate ways in which the judge violated the law in his case, including both the illegal incarceration and over-billing him court costs.

On March 23, 2020, the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a lawsuit against the Montgomery County commissioners accusing the county of violating the state Sunshine Act when the commissioners dismissed the county's top two public defenders, Dean Beer and Keisha Hudson. After observing thousands of bail hearings in Philadelphia during 2018 and 2019, the ACLU of Pennsylvania and allies determined that bail judges were not adequately taking into account the ability of a person to afford cash bail before assigning that person cash bail. The ACLU of Pennsylvania and allies filed a complaint with the state Supreme Court, asking the court to ensure that the rules are followed in Philadelphia and across the commonwealth. In Montgomery County, Chief Public Defender Dean Beer and Deputy Chief Keisha Hudson filed a brief in support of the Philadelphia lawsuit and called into question the misuse of cash bail in Montgomery County, noting that because “the Office of the Public Defender represents indigent individuals facing criminal charges at all stages of their proceedings,” the defenders have “a substantial interest in this matter.” Just weeks later, Mr. Beer and Ms. Hudson were abruptly fired. The ACLU of Pennsylvania's lawsuit alleges that the firing of Mr. Beer and Ms. Hudson is a violation of the Sunshine Act, which mandates that actions taken by public agencies, such as the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, be made in public — and the action must be preceded by an opportunity for public comment. The lawsuit asks the court to void the actions of the commissioners.

Following the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Commonwealth v. Ford that courts must consider a defendant’s ability to pay a fine at sentencing, it was unclear whether that ruling also applied to fines with mandatory minimums. In the this case, the statute set forth a floor for the fine of $50 per offense, but the court imposed a higher amount without considering her ability to pay. That should have rendered the fine illegal because, even if the court had to impose at least $50, it was also obligated to consider her ability to pay any amount in excess of $50. The Superior Court unfortunately dismissed the appeal because Ms. DiNardo’s lawyer filed the appeal one day late. The court therefore never reached the merits of the issue.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that individuals who were given life sentences while juveniles could not be required to pay the costs of re-sentencing them after their original sentences were ruled unconstitutional. The Court reasoned that, although defendants generally have to pay the costs of sentencing, this does not apply when they are resentenced through no fault of their own but instead because of a change in the law.

Weeks after sentencing, the clerk’s office assessed certain court costs and prepared a bill of costs but did not provide it to the defendant. Some of these costs were imposed without statutory authority to impose them. Because the time to file a post-sentencing motion had already passed, the defendant’s counsel—who learned of these costs by happenstance—filed an appeal within the timeframe to do so. The Superior Court refused to consider the appeal, reasoning that the defendant should have first somehow raised this issue with the trial court, even though the costs were not assessed until weeks after sentencing and in violation of due process by failing to notify the defendant.

If a defendant in a criminal case refuses to disclose the password to his encrypted computer, does either the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution or Article 1, Section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution protect him so that he does not have to reveal it?

Class action lawsuit against the Lebanon County court on behalf of three medical cannabis patients who are on probation