Idaho Supreme Court Upholds the Right of Counties to Collect Unpaid Criminal Fines

Counties have an additional avenue for pursuing unpaid criminal fines and, with the help of collection agencies, successfully collecting them, thanks to a recent Idaho Supreme Court decision.

The ruling came after Shoshone County sought to collect more than $33,000 in fines, fees and interest from John Dorsey, convicted in 2001 of manufacturing methamphetamine. Dorsey neglected to make any payments on his fine during his prison term, so Shoshone County assigned the debt to Collection Bureau Inc. of Nampa in 2008 to collect. Dorsey refused to pay the fine and asserted he didn’t have to pay, relying upon the fact that the statute of limitations during which the County could have enforced the judgment had expired.

“Our tenacity in protecting Shoshone County’s right to collect criminal fines benefits all public agencies, many of which do not have the resources to pursue collection actions,” said Mark L. Clark, owner of ACA International member Collection Bureau Inc. “Uncollected fines deny justice and in this economy, when public agencies are facing extreme financial pressures, uncollected fines harm taxpayers and the public. Public entities have a duty to go after them.”

While no figures are available on the amount of unpaid criminal fines in Idaho, it could be a substantial figure. According to the Idaho State Supreme Court, the value of all collected criminal and civil fines and fees paid to Idaho courts from July 2009 through June 2010 was more than $50 million.

Collection Bureau Inc. argued that when Dorsey signed his Parole Agreement with the Department of Corrections, in which he agreed to pay his underlying criminal fines, he acknowledged his debt in writing, triggering a new five-year statute of limitations. Also, Collection Bureau Inc. argued the statute of limitations was inapplicable because the State was a party to the Parole Agreement.

The Supreme Court adopted Collection Bureau Inc.’s position that the Parole Agreement served as a written acknowledgment of Dorsey’s criminal debt. Accordingly, the lawsuit filed by Collection Bureau Inc. against Dorsey was timely because it was filed within five years of the date the Parole Agreement was signed. Signaling a potential need at the legislative level to reform conflicting statutes, Justice Jim Jones stated in a concurring opinion that, in his opinion, “no statute of limitations applies to the collection of a fine, monetary penalty or restitution provision contained in a judgment of conviction in a criminal case.”

Those who owe counties for unpaid fines will pay much higher fees than those who owe money to businesses. With standard businesses, collection agencies collect the amount owed and typically keep a third of it, turning over the rest over to the client. But by law, counties cannot accept less for a fine than what is actually owed. So, a collection agency can’t take a cut of the fine money and must add another one-third on top of the fees, fines and interest owed to the county. The good news for counties is that using a collection agency is essentially a cost-free proposition, assuming the agency is familiar with the particulars of collecting government fines.

“Counties are sitting on uncollected revenue because of lack of resources to pursue it, or they may think that it’s uncollectable after five years,” said Clark, whose agency has developed considerable expertise in collecting fines for public entities. “There is whole segment of fines they have written off and there’s still much to be collected.”