'All Rise' Episode 5 deals with high court costs and its impact on poor defendants
In most legal dramas, we see out-of-the-ordinary types of cases -- for example in this week's episode of CBS's 'All Rise, one of the cases involved a woman who had duped 12 men to pay exorbitant amounts for their dates -- a total amount of nearly $10,000 -- by dining and dashing. The case is handled by Mark on the Defense Attorney's side and though he tried his best, the woman gets away. But one thing is in his control, he has circulated the name and photos of the woman at restaurants around so that she is prevented from doing this again.
As this week's episode opens, Judge Lola Carmichael is meting out the sentence to Owens who has been selling marijuana without a license. He notes that as a black man, it is very difficult for him to obtain a license, unlike all the affluent white businesses that do. Owens is told he will be under probation but has to pay $500 in fines and court costs in addition to that. Owens lets her know he cannot afford it before walking away and this weighs on Lola's mind.
Later, Lola manages to find out the court costs with respect to his case and finds out in addition to the fine, Owens will have to pay close to $2000 to the court. She also finds out that every $150 in unpaid amount converts to one day in jail. She does some more digging and eventually, gives a way out for Owens that owing to overcrowding of the prison and other reasons, should he take that option, Owens can be out of jail in a few hours without having to pay the court a single penny. Lola says, "The justice system needs to stop funding itself on the backs of defendants."
This is where 'All Rise' excels -- the legal drama is only five episodes into its first season, but it manages to tell the stories of people that do not normally get told. The show has already tackled ICE, jury field trips and systemized racism, and racial profiling by the police as well as the related PTSD that stems from such situations.
A year-long investigation report published in 2014 NPR found that the costs of the criminal justice system are paid increasingly by defendants and offenders. According to the article, it is "a practice that causes the poor to face harsher treatment than others who commit identical crimes and can afford to pay." Sociologist Alexis Harris of the University of Washington told NPR that these are most likely to be paid by people of color, African-Americans, and Latinos.
The North Carolina branch of American Civil Liberties Union also released a report in 2019 detailing the "history of those court costs, how North Carolina has sought to turn the judiciary from its role as a neutral arbiter of justice toward service as a state debt collector, and how the resulting unjust system criminalizes poverty, violates people’s rights, and preys on many of our state’s most vulnerable residents."
It's clear that a lot of work needs to be done behind the scenes, work that most people aren't even aware of. What 'All Rise' has managed to do, even with such a small storyline, is bring such issues to the attention to the people who normally would not hear about it otherwise. Greg Spottiswood's procedural drama is clearly paving its own way in the saturated world of law and order on television, and it is managing to bring important issues to the forefront as well.
'All Rise' airs on CBS on Monday nights.