PHILADELPHIA _ A decade after he was first sentenced in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, Maurice Hudson still could not come up with $1,941 in outstanding court costs _ and, at a February hearing, it was clear Judge Genece Brinkley was out of patience.
"Each time, he has come back here with excuses," Brinkley said of Hudson, who at 19 was convicted of a robbery and sentenced to two to four years in prison.
"I'm struggling out there on the streets," Hudson, now 29, told her. He had come home on probation, gotten married, and become a stay-at-home father of two young girls with special needs. He earned only $150 a week as a part-time janitor. "I keep hearing it every time I come in front of you, 'I'm not trying.' How is it I'm not trying?"
To Brinkley, there was only one way to teach Hudson: an additional 1 {- to three-year sentence in state prison. She said it was "absolutely necessary to vindicate the authority of the court."
Appeals courts have ruled people cannot be incarcerated for nonpayment without a determination that they are actually able to pay. Yet, in Hudson's case, said Cheryl Brooks, a Philadelphia public defender, "he was essentially jailed for his poverty."
Hudson's case illustrates a reality for hundreds of people on probation or parole across Pennsylvania: Failure to keep up with court-ordered payments remains a common reason for judges to revoke supervision and impose more probation, more parole, or even more incarceration, keeping people under court control for years on end.
"It's an ongoing, systemic problem," said Andrew Christy, an attorney with the ACLU of Pennsylvania. He wrote, in an amicus brief in Hudson's case, that the practice "turned Pennsylvania's jails into a form of modern debtors' prisons."
Last year, Hudson spent about six months in Delaware County jail for falling behind on $350 in monthly child support owed to his older daughter. He said the repeated incarceration was a barrier to getting on his feet; he was home just over a month when he was incarcerated again for the probation violation.
Brooks filed an emergency bail petition with the state Superior Court, which ordered Brinkley to rule on it "without delay." Six weeks later, on Oct. 4, Brinkley denied the petition. Brinkley did not respond to interview requests.
