Ferguson City Council Weighs Changes To Court System

Transcript

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That's the response so far from Congress. Back in Ferguson, Missouri the city council is set to make some major changes to its criminal justice system. As Jason Rosenbaum of St. Louis Public Radio reports, some people wonder if the proposals will go far enough.

JASON ROSENBAUM, BYLINE: The Ferguson city Council is meeting tonight for the first time since one of its police officers shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown. Touching off widespread protests. They're set to create a citizen's review board that would oversee the city's police department and reduce or even eliminate financial penalties for violating city laws. In the last fiscal year the city collected more than $2.5 million in fines and forfeiture, which accounted for roughly 20 percent of the city's total revenue. The Council now once to reduce that percentage. These proposals arose after the city's police and courts faced considerable scrutiny and criticism. The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the police department and there's been alarm over the amount of tickets the city issues, especially to low income African Americans.

THOMAS HARVEY: The courts have to start treating these people as people, with real life problems. That's one of the primary concerns our clients have is nobody's listening to them when they say, I'm not a scofflaw, I'm not a criminal, I'm a poor person who's having a hard time making these fines.

ROSENBAUM: That's attorney Thomas Harvey who defends low income clients. He says many of them run afoul of municipal laws and then become trapped in a seemingly endless legal and financial cycle. That's why Harvey and others are calling for officials here to wipe out fines for minor violations. That includes fines for towing cars or missing a court date. While the proposed changes Don't go as far as he'd like, he does see some progress. Especially getting rid of the so-called, failure to appear fine.

HARVEY: If you get an additional charge for failure to appear it's an additional fine and it's an additional warrant. That's often what the warrant is. It's for failure to appear in court that night. But if they get rid of the failure to appear warrant that will - that's a welcome relief to a lot of our clients lives.

ROSENBAUM: State Legislator Courtney Curtis, who represents Ferguson in the Missouri House says the city has taken a number of positive steps, including body camera's for it's police officers.

COURTNEY CURTIS: As some of us are ready to heal, some are not. There is a place for the long-term healing of the community to began.

ROSENBAUM: Indeed mistrust the Ferguson City government runs deep here. Especially with some African-American. Representatives for Brown's family today again called for Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson to be arrested. St. Louis NAACP chairman Adolphus Pruitt says it’s time to end character assassination of the victim.

ADOLPHUS PRUITT: And you will hear all sort of things about, he was charging at him, he was this, he was that, but at the end of the day, no one disputes that his arms were not up, one disputes that he was unarmed.

ROSENBAUM: Meldon Moffitt has been camping out in a parking lot on West Florissant Avenue to protest Brown’s death. He doubts the changes will be affective unless other nearby cities in St. Louis County revamp their court systems.

MELDON MOFFITT: You got to start all over. When you start all over, then that's a whole. But if you start out single-handedly, there just saying, well we're trying to pamper people so we won't look. That's basically what they're doing they're doing.

ROSENBAUM: Attorney Thomas Harvey agrees.

HARVEY: And when they - our clients hear from Judge's, I don't care give us the money, that sends the wrong message and it destroys the political capital that they otherwise could build for their communities.

ROSENBAUM: But legislators from both parties are now talking about introducing statewide legislation to alter municipal courts authority. Harvey says along with what the Ferguson city Council is proposing that's a step toward reconfiguring what many here think is a broken system. For NPR News, I'm Jason Rosenbaum. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.