For the past several years, 47-year-old Meredith Walker has dreaded driving. Walker hasn’t had a moving violation in more than 15 years. But the St. Louis County resident still fears she could be pulled over and jailed at any time because she can’t afford to pay off her outstanding debts. She’s been jailed at least 10 times in just five years.
“When I first got locked up, my child cried so hard, wondering when his mother would come home,” Walker, a teacher and a mother of two, said. “I will never forget my child crying on the phone because he didn’t know when I was coming home.”
Walker said she even changed her hair because she believed she was stopped more frequently when she had dreadlocks. But despite paying over $15,000 in fees, court costs and bond forfeitures to various municipalities in St. Louis County – many of which derive large portions of their budgets from fines and fees – Walker’s license was suspended because a number of cities still say she owes them money for unpaid tickets.
“They are preying on communities that just don’t have the disposable income or family support to borrow the money,” Walker said. “It’s either you pay or go to jail. There’s no in between.”
Walker is a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit filed on Monday, October 31 by ArchCity Defenders, a civil rights law firm based in St. Louis, against the City of Florissant. ArchCity Defenders has been involved in a number of similar lawsuits, including a recent suit against 13 other St. Louis County municipalities, and won a settlement with the city of Jennings, which also borders Ferguson, over the same type of conduct alleged in Florissant. A separate lawsuit against the City of Ferguson is pending.
Florissant is the largest municipality in St. Louis County by population, with over 52,000 residents. Although African Americans make up less than 30 percent of the population in Florissant, they are pulled over, searched and arrested much more often than whites, even though police are much less likely to find contraband when they do search them compared to whites, according to a study from Better Together. Over the past five years, Florissant has earned more than $12 million from its municipal court fines and costs, according to the lawsuit.
Florissant issued over 28,000 arrest warrants in 2015, an average of 1.3 arrest warrants per household and nearly one warrant for every adult. The city collected more than $2.3 million in court fines, fees and forfeited bond payments that year, according to the lawsuit.
Walker, who’s been jailed in Florissant several times, described the conditions inside Florissant’s jail as “deplorable.” She said she was exposed to unsanitary conditions and that there was no privacy for restroom use with male guards present.
The lead plaintiff, Thomas Baker, a 41-year-old former U.S. Army reservist and father of three, has been jailed in Florissant approximately 15 times. On top of high bonds (anywhere from $600 to $1,2000) to secure his release, Baker said no cups were allowed in the jail and so he was forced to drink from a “toilet basin” located inches above the toilet bowl.
The suit claims that inmates in Florissant “are not given adequate hygiene products for menstruation; are routinely denied vital medical care and prescription medication, even when their families beg to be allowed to bring medication to the jail; are provided food so insufficient and lacking in nutrition that inmates lose significant amounts of weight; suffer from dehydration out of fear of drinking foul smelling water dispensed from an apparatus covered in blood and mucus on top of the toilet.”
Jail guards, the suit claims, “routinely taunt impoverished people when they are unable to pay for their release.” The lawsuit says that the plaintiffs were “held in jail indefinitely without either the legal representation of the inquiry into their ability to pay guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Instead, they were threatened, abused, and left to languish in confinement until their frightened family members produced enough cash to buy their freedom or until city jail officials decided, days or weeks later, to release them free of charge – after it had become clear the city would not be able to extract any money from them.”
Thomas Harvey, co-founder of Arch City Defenders, said the firm’s successful suit shows that the problems brought to light in Ferguson are widespread throughout St. Louis County.
“I think the only real way is for this whole municipal court system to go away,” Harvey said. “That would be a meaningful change in our clients’ lives and the peoples’ lives who have lived in terror of these police departments and these courts for 50 years.”
Harvey also said he believed it was very important for those who had been unlawfully jailed by municipalities in St. Louis County to receive settlements based on the impact of those jail stays.
“These places have done real damage to people’s lives, and that damage won’t be undone just because they say we’re not going to do this again in the future,” Harvey said. Significant monetary settlements will take away incentives for municipalities to use their courts as revenue generators, according to Harvey.
“I don’t think that should be ignored,” he said. “The DOJ’s agreement in Ferguson doesn’t include any damages for these folks, and we’re going to pursue damages.”
This story is published as part of a partnership between The St. Louis American and The Huffington Post.
