Arguments heard in lawsuit over Ravalli County’s ‘Jail Diversion Program’

Plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit seeking to stop Ravalli County’s “Jail Diversion Program” argued their case in a renewed request for an injunction prohibiting defendants Ravalli County Sheriff Steve Holton and Ravalli County from charging any fees associated with the Jail Diversion Program and prohibiting them from detaining anyone for failure to pay said fees. Plaintiffs Teri Lea Evenson-Childs, Daniel O’Toole, Richard Churchill, and Keith Leonard are also moving to have the case certified as a class action, allowing other similarly aggrieved parties to join in the case. Over a dozen declarations were entered from other affected individuals and added to those of the plaintiffs as exhibits of what the plaintiffs’ attorneys in the case consider an unconstitutional program that charges people who have not been convicted of any crime exorbitant pre-trial fees and then jails them for not paying those fees, in some cases keeping them jailed for not paying the fees even after they have posted bond and even after being found not guilty. The case was filed in 2021 in Federal District Court in Missoula.

Last week Judge Dana Christensen heard oral arguments in the case to consider the plaintiffs’ motion for an injunction and class certification; defendant Sheriff Steve Holton’s and Ravalli County Justices of the Peace Jennifer Ray’s and Jim Bailey’s motion to dismiss; and District Court Judges Howard Recht’s and Jennifer Lint’s motion to dismiss.

Plaintiffs state in their request for class action designation that “through its ‘Jail Diversion Program,’ Defendant Ravalli County extracts money from essentially everyone it arrests — even though arrestees remain legally innocent. Fees are imposed and collected without consideration of arrestees’ ability to pay. To carry out Ravalli County’s policies, officers must do everything they can to induce payment, including threatening supervisees with arrest and carrying out those threats. Plaintiffs ask the Court to grant their motion for class certification to put an end to Defendants’ unlawful fee collection scheme and to redress past harms, so that no one else will face its unlawful demands.” The fact that the Sheriff and Ravalli County do this “as a matter of policy” qualifies their case for class action, they argue.

Attorneys for plaintiffs argue that the pre-trial fees deprive pretrial arrestees without due process. They describe the fees as “a form of arbitrary bail.” They claim that requiring unhoused individuals to pay a deposit before release criminalizes the status of homelessness,” violating the 8th Amendment. Refusing to consider ability to pay pretrial fees and the policy of threatening reincarceration to induce payment of fees both violate due process. They argue that refusal to consider arrestees’ ability to pay pretrial fees violates both the federal Equal Protection Clause and the Montana Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, calling it a “form of wealth-based and status-based discrimination.” They argue that the county’s policy of detaining pretrial arrestees beyond their release date and conditioning release on payment of pretrial fees amounts to false imprisonment. They also claim that the Jail Diversion Program violates due process by coercing pretrial arrestees into signing unconscionable contracts “agreeing” to further criminal liability as a condition of release. 

Responding to the motion for class certification, attorneys for District Court Judges Lint and Recht argue against it, stating that, “The expressed policy of the State of Montana is that the Judges must consider risk and ability to pay in setting reasonable pretrial conditions. To the extent the Judges have failed to follow this statutory directive in actual practice, the alleged deviation necessarily depends on a host of facts unique to each defendant’s case. As such, there is no common question which is capable of class-wide resolution.” They argue specifically that the plaintiffs have failed to sustain their burden to satisfy the rules governing the establishment of a class action, having to do with “numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequate representation,” as well as other rules.

“There is no common answer to any question against the Judges that would resolve an issue in dispute in one stroke,” they contend. “None of these questions will yield an answer capable of resolving any issue in dispute. They appear to have been listed for no other reason than to create the illusion of commonality.”

Attorneys for the Judges also contend that the plaintiffs have not shown that the claims of each plaintiff named in the suit do not differ significantly from the claims or defenses of the class as a whole. The claims, they contend, “must arise from the same events or course of conduct and must be based on the same legal theory.” In this case, they argue, they do not. The fact that all four named plaintiffs are indigent and claiming violations of their rights based on their poverty distinguishes them from other non-indigent plaintiffs.

“Not only do the named Plaintiffs have different legal theories than much of the class, they have made those legal theories the focus of the litigation. In fact, of the nine counts raised in the complaint, six are asserted exclusively on behalf of those who cannot pay for pretrial services,” they wrote. “In sum, the indigent and non-indigent class members will be prosecuting different legal theories and are subject to different standards of proof and different defenses. Because the claims and defenses relative to the named Plaintiffs’ complaints of wealth-based discrimination threaten to become the focus of the litigation, their claims are not typical” under the rule.

Because the named plaintiffs’ legal focus is on claims not shared by the non-indigent class, the ability of the named plaintiffs to “vigorously” prosecute on behalf of those who can afford pretrial fees is undermined. Likewise, they argue, the focus and effort devoted to indigent class members creates a conflict in the maintenance of the lawsuit.

Attorneys for the Judges also argue that the primary relief being sought is predominantly monetary and not declaratory while the rules require that it be predominantly declaratory.

They also argue that certification of a class action is premature, writing, “in the event the Court is inclined to certify the proposed classes, it should take up the Judges’ dispositive motions first by ruling on the pending motion to dismiss and then, if the case survives, setting a briefing schedule on the Judges’ motion for summary judgment.”

Plaintiffs claim in response that “although Defendant Judges suggest Plaintiffs seek to impose liability against them, Plaintiffs request only declaratory relief against Defendant Judges relating to their roles as county policymakers in creating and implementing the Jail Diversion Program policies. Defendants also mischaracterize Plaintiffs’ case as requiring a searching inquiry of individual circumstances, but members of the four proposed classes share common injuries, common legal theories, and common claims.”

Ravalli County’s response to the class action certification follows the District Court Judges’ reasoning for the most part, concluding that the Plaintiffs fail to establish that common questions of fact or law predominate in this case, and further fail to show that a class action is the superior method for fairly and efficiently adjudicating Plaintiffs’ claims. Certification under Rule 23(b)(3) is therefore improper, they claim.

The District Court Judges have filed their own motion to dismiss the claims against them, stating the complaint asks the Court to determine the legality of the Judges’ exercise of adjudicatory authority under state law. “The Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction to do so, and Plaintiffs have failed to state a plausible cause of action against the Judges regardless,” they wrote. They claim the judges are being sued “for nothing less than applying Montana law when setting bail and pretrial conditions… Plaintiffs wish to challenge the statutes authorizing the Judges to set pretrial conditions serviced by a pretrial services agency, there are mechanisms to do so, but they do not include suing the Judges for following the law.”

They also claim in their motion to dismiss that the plaintiffs cannot demonstrate redressability, or a causal nexus. They further claim that in order to grant the relief requested, the Court would necessarily have to review and determine the lawfulness of prior state court decisions imposing pretrial conditions which is not permitted under the 11th Amendment. They also argue that the plaintiffs’ claims could have and should have been litigated in State court.

In their own motion to dismiss, the Sheriff and Justices of the Peace argue that the county defendants named in their official capacity are not the proper parties to be sued. The charges against the Sheriff in his official capacity, they argue, is the equivalent of charging Ravalli County and should be dismissed as duplicative. The motion contends that because a Justice of the Peace is presiding over a criminal case, acting as an agent of the State of Montana, the claims against them are barred by the 11th Amendment and should be dismissed.

They argue that none of the claims against the County are valid. They argue that it is the state and not the county that sets all the requirements for the program that are in dispute. The county is simply carrying out the court’s instructions and its decisions, they claim. They also note that evidence of discriminatory intent was also lacking. They go on to claim that the plaintiffs fail to state an adequate claim for due process violations or unequal administration of the law. Like the District Court Judges they also argue that a decision in favor of the plaintiffs would interfere with the underlying criminal complaints against the individuals.

In reference to another lawsuit in which an injunction was sought to restrain an “illegal bond-setting practice” the judge rejected the injunction request, noting that “the order would contemplate interruption of state proceedings to adjudicate assertions of noncompliance by petitioners. This seems to us nothing less than an ongoing federal audit of state criminal proceedings which would indirectly accomplish the kind of interference that Younger v. Harris, supra, and related cases sought to prevent.”

“Because Plaintiffs’ federal constitutional claims may be mooted or substantially narrowed by resolution of their state law claims, this Court should abstain from hearing the federal constitutional claims and Plaintiffs should be required to litigate their claims in state court,” they wrote.

Judge Dana Christensen said that he was taking the arguments under advisement and would issue a decision promptly.

Equal Justice Under the Law attorney Phil Telfeyan said from his Washington D.C. office that Judge Christensen appeared to have read the case arguments very closely, referring to explicit arguments in the filings and seemed to be very familiar with the case.

“I believe the judge understands the fundamental problem with Ravalli County’s pre-trial fee system,” said Telfeyan. He said at several points the attorneys for the defendants had trouble justifying why they are charging fees prior to trial. He said the fact that the court heard arguments for four hours was an indication of how seriously the court was taking the matter.

Telfeyan said that he would expect a written order in the case to come within a couple of weeks to a month. This is a critical case that will affect hundreds of people in Ravalli County, he said.

“It’s not a small problem, it’s a huge problem,” said Telfeyan. “We are hoping to make a difference.”