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Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay Fines, Meghan M. O'Neil, J.J. Prescott
Targeting Poverty In The Courts: Improving The Measurement Of Ability To Pay Fines, Meghan M. O'Neil, J.J. Prescott
Articles
Ability-to-pay determinations are essential when governments use money-based alternative sanctions, like fines, to enforce laws. One longstanding difficulty in the U.S. has been the extreme lack of guidance on how courts are to determine a litigant’s ability to pay. The result has been a seat-of-the-pants approach that is inefficient and inaccurate, and, as a consequence, very socially costly. Fortunately, online platform technology presents a promising avenue for reform. In particular, platform technology offers the potential to increase litigant access, reduce costs, and ensure consistent and fair treatment—all of which should lead to more accurate sanctions. We use interviews, surveys, and …
The Standard Oil Fine, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
The Standard Oil Fine, Horace Lafayette Wilgus
Articles
August 3, 1907, Judge Landis, in the United States District Court, for the Northern District of Illinois, sentenced the Standard Oil Co. to pay the largest fine ever inflicted upon any offender.1 The suit was an indictment on 1,903 counts for violations of the Elkins Rebate Law in receiving concessions on the movement of 1,903 cars of oil from Whiting, Indiana, to East St. Louis, Illinois, and from Chappell, Illinois, to St. Louis, Missouri, during the eighteen months between September I, 1903, and March 1, 1905. Four hundred and forty-one counts were withdrawn as not necessarily involved in this case. …