Reply to Income based fines for traffic camera tickets in DC?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is hilariously impractical. The city will find it all but impossible to verify people’s incomes. [/quote]

Determining someone’s income is no simple thing. People can claim all sorts of losses that offset whatever shows up on a w2[/quote]

Well a whole bunch of countries do it so maybe it's not as hard as you make out?[/quote]

Do they use crazy schemes like 1% of W2 income?[/quote]

[b]So only people who get W2s have to pay traffic tickets? [/b]Sure, that 's fair; and great news for business owners, real estate agents, independent contractors, partners, etc.[/quote]

Nobody has proposed this. You're arguing against something that nobody has proposed.[/quote]

Because they haven't proposed how they plan to define the "income" of the offender in a manner that doesn't violate the Constitution. [/quote]

The Constitution?! Which part? The Second Amendment? The Third Amendment? The Thirteenth Amendment?[/quote]

The Eighth, obviously. The excessive fines clause, specifically.

Income based fines in the U.S. are tricky. While most people advocating for income base fines are focusing on the rights of the poor, which makes sense as an excessive fine, they fail to address the equal rights of those who aren't poor. Why is it just to impose greater penalties to some citizens compared to others for the same offense, without regard to extenuating circumstances related to the offense itself? Should people with busy lives be given less jail time than people with nothing to do all day? One of the factors in determining whether a fine is excessive is comparing the one given to the defendant to the fines given to others in the jurisdiction for the same offense, as well as fines imposed for that offense in other jurisdictions. It is a good idea to consider the burden of fines on the poor, and courts do so routinely, but the Eighth Amendment is a hurdle to overcome if you are saying the rich should be penalized more for the same offense. Particularly, if the fines of the wealthy are raised such that they are paying more to offset the offenses of those who cannot pay - - i.e. if penalties become a tax on the wealthy, that will be a hard case to make under the Eighth Amendment. [/quote]

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