KQED reports on civil assessments

This morning’s KQED Morning Report includes coverage of civil assessments and the advocates who are pushing the Governor to propose their abolition in his May budget revise. As we reported in January, BayLegal has joined ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, Bay Area Legal Aid, and Fenwick & West LLP filed a lawsuit challenging San Mateo County Superior Court’s unlawful practice of automatically imposing a $300 civil assessment every time an individual misses a payment or court deadline in their traffic infraction case

Our co-counsel Brandon Greene of ACLU-NC, interviewed for the report, puts the focus squarely on the economic and racial disparities that plague justice systems with incentives to self-fund through assessment of fines and fees that disproportionately fall on low-income Black and Latinx Californians—and on the growing legal and political momentum to abolish this practice.  

Other coverage of this story:

• “California may chop late fees that add hundreds of dollars to traffic tickets,” Jeanne Kuang in CalMatters, May 9, 2022.