The District of Columbia and D.C. Superior Court are facing a class action over what happens to the fees paid by arrested persons during a process known as "post and forfeit."
Under the sometimes-controversial process, individuals arrested for certain minor offenses, such as disorderly conduct, can post collateral and then forfeit it in exchange for essentially having the case dropped without an admission of guilt. According to a complaint (PDF) filed November 6 in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the plaintiffs are claiming that the court isn't issuing refunds when arrested individuals are overcharged and pay more collateral than required.
The amounts of money at issue are relatively small. The lead plaintiff, Aster Tachebele, for instance, is claiming that she paid $100 to resolve a charge of selling cigarettes to a minor, but the correct fee amount is $75. The proposed class would include individuals arrested and allegedly overcharged in a similar fashion from November 2009 through the present.
Tachebele's lawyer claims that a random series of dockets pulled between April 1, 2010 and April 15, 2010 showed that more than 30 people who went through the "post and forfeit" process were overcharged by amounts as low as $10 to as high as $50.
In the complaint, Tachebele notes that her case docket includes an entry for an overcharge. In the complaint, she claims that the court clerk's office checks for overcharges and makes similar notations in other case dockets, but "has no policy of making refunds."
Tachebele's lawyer, local solo practitioner William Claiborne III, could not immediately be reached today for comment. The court, through spokeswoman Leah Gurowitz, declined to comment,citing the pending case. The city's Office of the Attorney General, through spokesman Ted Gest, declined to comment, except that they are reviewing the case.
The "post and forfeit" process has come under scrutiny before, although usually for how it's administered by the Metropolitan Police Department. In one still-pending lawsuit against the police department, the plaintiff accused police officers of using the process to quickly resolve and cover-up what she alleged was an unlawful arrest for disorderly conduct. The department is in the process of appealing a judgment in the plaintiff's favor before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Tachebele's case is before U.S. District Judge Richard Leon. No court dates have been scheduled.