People v. Taylor

In 2013, the Michigan Legislature passed MIDCA to improve indigent criminal defense services by establishing a state-funded system to support local defense programs. As part of this system, MIDCA also limits the conditions under which trial courts may collect money from indigent defendants and, just as important, what can be done with that money. Specifically, MIDCA authorizes courts to order payments from defendants who are found to be only partially—not fully—indigent.

In 2014, however, a Michigan court ordered criminal defendant Pamela Jean Taylor to pay $1,420 in attorney’s fees even though she is fully indigent and even though the court made no finding that she can pay anything. In issuing that order, the court seemingly relied on a pre-MIDCA law allowing courts to impose such fees.

The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, the ACLU of Michigan, and the Michigan State Planning Body filed an amicus brief in the Michigan Supreme Court arguing that Michigan law does not allow the assessment of attorney fees against indigent criminal defendants for two reasons. First, MIDCA superseded any prior authority, such as the pre-MIDCA law, to impose these fees on fully indigent defendants. Allowing such fees would undermine MIDCA’s protections, burden those who cannot afford to pay, and divert funds from the indigent defense systems MIDCA was designed to support. Second, interpreting the pre-MIDCA law to permit these fees could raise serious constitutional concerns, such as whether the fees discourage people from exercising their constitutional right to counsel or amount to unconstitutional taxes or fines.