Failure to Pay? Comply? Appear? What Have You Done?

 

After paying on his fines for several months, Bert Lauder just stops. Can he be sent to jail in Alabama for failure to pay? From Google:

No one may be sentenced to incarceration for inability to pay fines, fees, or restitution. However, the court may incarcerate a person for nonpayment of fines and fees after holding an ability to pay hearing and determining that the failure to pay was willful (i.e. the defendant had the ability to pay but did not).

What you do see more often in arrest reports are the charges failure to comply or failure to appear. If you can't pay your fine, please go to court and tell the judge. You avoid a warrant and the bad publicity of arrest.

Sometimes this crime is listed as failure to comply, as in comply with the payment agreement. That charge is also used as in failing to leave property when evicted by the courts.

Is there anything else you can do? Yes. If your charge is in Florence Municipal Court, you can work off your find at the recycling center. This helps the city, the environment, and you!

If you don't even try, authorities assume the worst about you...and who can blame them?

Several have asked us about publishing more crime news. We consider our primary role to be political commentary, but understand that there is a void since Pen-N-Sword has ceased publication.

The Hidden Shoals has been created in answer to that request. We're not sure if the blog will publish a new crime each day, but it should at least be frequently. Comments on the publication welcome.