Amy Booth鈥檚 felony grand theft auto case was closed a week after her arrest in February 2023. She still owes over $500 in court fees a year later.
鈥淭his is an impossible situation to be in,鈥� Booth, 40, said. 鈥淭here is no end.鈥�
Booth is indigent, a term for people who are deemed legally poor and need financial assistance in court. University of Florida legal skills professor Derek Wheeler, 34, said indigency is an important aspect of a fair justice system.
鈥淚ndigent people are those who can鈥檛 afford to represent themselves independently,鈥� he said. 鈥淧eople who check the boxes for poverty need assistance from the court to hire a public defender who can try their case.鈥�
Indigency applications, filed when a person has been charged with a crime, are the gateway to a poor person鈥檚 court process. Once the application is filed and indigency status is granted, the person is assigned a public defender and offered fee waivers that can prevent them from drowning in court debt. Before they can reap these benefits, though, they must pay a fee: $50 for the initial application and any appeals filed if they are not deemed indigent immediately.
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The Alachua County Clerk of Court approved 2,560 indigency applications in 2023, amounting to $128,000 in assessed fees for the year.
Some see $50 as pocket change, but for the legally poor of the Alachua County court system, it could be their next car payment or a month of meals for two. Booth said she couldn鈥檛 believe the indigency application fee when her public defender told her about it.
鈥淢y jaw dropped,鈥� she said, 鈥渁nd I couldn鈥檛 help but start crying at his desk. I thought about my daughter, rent and food and I was desperate.鈥�
Booth said she begged her lawyer to waive the cost, but he said he couldn鈥檛. Alachua County private attorney Allen Sherman, 58, explained that indigency fees are not at the discretion of the public defenders.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 control these fees, or any others,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 want my clients to avoid these fees as much as they do, but there鈥檚 nothing I can do about it.鈥�
The $50 indigency application fee is codified in Florida state statute, which also established what鈥檚 known as the Indigent Criminal Defense Trust Fund. The fund collects indigency application fees to pay for public defenders and court services, which Sherman says is a contradiction.
鈥淚f the indigency application fees go into a pool of money that is used to defend the very people who paid the money in the first place, why does it even exist?鈥� Sherman said.
鈥淚ndigency status should mean that the person on trial pays as little money as possible, because that鈥檚 all they can afford. Why should they put money into the fund that may not even be used for their case?鈥�
Another critical part of the statute is that failure to pay the application fee does not mean an indigent individual can be refused a public defender or other essential court services, like interpreting and literacy aid. Ann Williams, 53, said she thought her application fee was waived because she was assigned a public defender without paying the fee beforehand.
鈥淚 submitted my application, and they told me I was poor, which I already knew,鈥� she said. 鈥淢y case came and went, and I was about a month into my regular life when I found out I still had to pay all the fees they charged me with.鈥�
Williams said the fees for her month-long trial, which concluded when the state chose not to prosecute the domestic battery charges against her, totaled over $300. Williams鈥� fees came from her indigency application, use of a public defender and case processing.
鈥淢y charges were dropped almost a year ago and I鈥檓 still paying off court fees and bond,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f I was innocent, why wouldn鈥檛 they give me my money back?鈥�
In addition to fees, Booth was ordered to pay almost $1,600 in restitution to Enterprise Risk Management, the company affected by her crime.
鈥淪ometimes I wake up in a panic worried about how I鈥檓 going to pay off this money that I owe,鈥� Booth said. 鈥淚t was supposed to be easy with the community service, but it just made everything more complicated.鈥�
The community service Booth referenced is a probation option offered by judges which allows people like her to perform community service instead of payment. In Booth鈥檚 case, she could take $12 off her fee total for each hour of community service she performed.
鈥淚 know the community service was a nice offer since I couldn鈥檛 afford the fees alone,鈥� she said, 鈥渂ut I couldn鈥檛 balance my job, my kid and the community service. They never gave me more than 24 hours of notice for my community service shifts and I was starting to get in trouble at work.鈥�
A write-up at her Waffle House job for missing a shift to do community service was the final straw for Booth. She chose to opt out of the community service project the next day, leaving her with a balance of over $550 in fees.
鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 feel like it, but I really did get lucky with just my court fees,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 could be in jail right now paying money daily just for being there.鈥�
Many jails and prisons do charge daily maintenance fees, which some prison officials compare to rent, but the Alachua County Jail is no longer one of them. Alachua County commissioners voted in May 2023 to eliminate all discretionary fees, but the same measure wouldn鈥檛 be able to nix the court fees Williams and Booth have to pay, as they are set at the state level.
Booth and Williams had vastly different cases and trial experiences, but they are united by the fees they continue to pay off even now. Williams said her case left her feeling desperate.
鈥淚 applied for what my lawyer told me was going to help me, but it doesn鈥檛 feel like it helped at all,鈥� Williams said. 鈥淚t feels like I鈥檓 going to be paying for my mistake forever.鈥�
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