Inmate sues over practice of converting unpaid fine to jail time

Steven Swanson's complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court claims he was serving out a six month misdemeanor sentence and would have been eligible for release on Dec. 13, 1997. But his $1,100 fine was automatically converted to jail time.

At $75 a day, Swanson realized his Dec. 27 release day would make him miss spending Christmas with his four children, so he sought release from the county jail in exchange for paying off the remainder of his fine.

Swanson's request was denied by a deputy who said it is policy to automatically convert fines to jail time for those who cannot pay.

Sheriff's Sgt. Bob Towery confirmed that it is standard practice to keep people in jail until their fines are paid, but could not comment further without seeing the complaint.

Terri Keyser-Cooper, Swanson's attorney, said that he was incarcerated beyond the expiration of his sentence "solely because he was indigent and unable to pay his fine at the time of his scheduled release."

Keyser-Cooper said this was because of Sheriff Richard Kirkland's policy of automatically converting fines owed to additional jail time, a policy she contends is unconstitutional.

In 1971, she said the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed this practice because it violated equal protection of the law and unfairly penalized the poor for being poor.

The practice also was prohibited by the Nevada Supreme Court in 1983.

Keyser-Cooper, who is involved in ongoing litigation against Kirkland over his use of inmate laborers, is asking for summary judgment on the sheriff's liability because it is such a clear violation of the constitution.

"This is the clearest case I've ever filed in my life," she told the Daily Sparks Tribune.

"It's a debtor's prison and I hope we stop this practice because they do it to everyone who is poor," Swanson said.

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