By JIM GALLAGHER • St. Louis Post-Distpatch | Posted: Sunday, January 15, 2012
Robin Ebersohl knew she had a loud muffler. She couldn’t afford to get it fixed. When she saw a police car, she thought she’d chance it and drive by.
It was a mistake bigger than she could have imagined.
She thought she might get a ticket. Instead, she got three days in jail and her father lost $500 in bail money.
Ebersohl, of Livingston in Madison County, wasn’t accused of a crime. She was arrested on a court order issued at the behest of a creditor trying to collect less than $1,000 she owned in medical bills.
Ebersohl, 51, was trapped in the 21st century version of debtor’s prison.
“It was awful. You get deloused. They do this in front of the guard. It was very embarrassing. It was very degrading,” she said. “I’d never been arrested before, never been in any kind of trouble.”
The term “debtors prison” summons up images of Dickensian England and Colonial America. As a formal matter, most states did away with debtors prisons in the early 1800s, along with the whipping post.
But lots of people still go to jail over unpaid debts in America – including Missouri and Illinois. Here’s how it happens:
A creditor goes to court and gets a judgment for an unpaid debt. The debtor is then summoned to court to be questioned by the creditor, who wants to know about assets that could be seized. It’s called a “pay or appear” hearing in Illinois.
If the debtor doesn’t show up, the creditor asks the judge for an arrest order. In Illinois, that’s called a “body attachment.”
Creditors and their lawyers say it’s necessary tool to make sure that debtors obey the courts.
“If we can’t enforce our contracts, and use the law to do that, what will we become?” asked William Asa, a creditors attorney in Metro East.
Consumer advocates say its used unfairly to squeeze money out of jailed defendants and coerce others with the threat of imprisonment.
Police generally don’t go hunting for debtors. But if they’re stopped for a traffic violation or some other reason, the warrant shows up on computer records and off to jail the debtor goes.
Creditors like body attachments because they make money on them, as Ebersohl can testify. She sat in jail until her father’s pension check arrived, and he paid her $500 bail.
Then the court released the bail to her creditor, the Credit Bureau of Macoupin County. Her father was out the money.
“It’s considered the property of the defendant,” says Brent Cain, who represented the Credit Bureau. After all, the Credit Bureau had a judgement against Ebersohl and thus could take her property.
That’s common practice, says Beverly Yang, attorney at Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance, which provides free legal representation for the poor.
“This process is THE method of collection,” she said.
Arrests of debtors are common today in Southern Illinois, according to Yang. She said Madison County courts issued 65 such arrest orders from April to December of last year. Ebersohl’s arrest was in October 2007 on an order issued in Macoupin County.
