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For Immediate Release
June, 01 2017, 02:30pm EDT
Contact:
Susan Dunn, ACLU of South Carolina, 843- 282-7953, sdunn@aclusc.org
Alexandra Ringe, ACLU National, 212-549-2582, aringe@aclu.org
ACLU Challenges Unconstitutional Debtors' Prison Practices in South Carolina County
In Lexington County, people who can’t afford court fines for traffic and other low-level offenses go to jail, without consideration of their finances and without legal representation
COLUMBIA, South Carolina
In the latest pushback against modern-day debtors' prisons, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of South Carolina, and Terrell Marshall Law Group PLLC filed a class-action lawsuit today challenging the illegal arrest and incarceration of poor people in Lexington County, South Carolina. Victims are arrested on warrants and incarcerated when they cannot afford to pay fines for traffic and other misdemeanor offenses. They remain in jail for weeks to months without seeing a judge, having a court hearing, or receiving help from a lawyer.
"I was locked up for 57 days because I couldn't pay my traffic fines," said plaintiff Twanda Marshinda Brown, a single mother who lives with her children in Section 8 housing. Brown was working at a fast food restaurant and made payments toward her fines, but when she fell behind, she was arrested and incarcerated. "It was devastating for me and my kids."
Each year in Lexington County, hundreds of impoverished people go to jail because they can't afford the fines and fees set by the county's magistrate courts in traffic and other misdemeanor cases. The ACLU's review of court records found that more than a thousand people in the last calendar year were at risk of being jailed for nonpayment of fines and fees owed to Lexington County magistrate courts.
"Lexington County is home to a modern-day debtors' prison, with some of the longest jail terms we've seen across the country," said Nusrat Choudhury, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program. "People who can afford to pay buy their freedom, while poor people are imprisoned, causing their families to suffer, their jobs to disappear, and their chances of escaping poverty to become even more remote."
Cayeshia Johnson, another plaintiff in the lawsuit, was jailed in Lexington County for 55 days because she couldn't pay $1,287.50 in court fines. Plaintiff Xavier Goodwin was jailed for 63 days over $1,710 in traffic tickets. Goodwin still owes fines and fees to a Lexington County magistrate court and fears he will again be arrested and incarcerated because he can't afford to pay.
Lexington County collects revenue for its General Fund from fines and fees in traffic and criminal cases handled by magistrate courts.
"The poverty rate in Lexington County has risen over the past several years, yet officials still use the poorest of the poor as a source of revenue," said Susan Dunn, legal director of the ACLU of South Carolina. "People of color in Lexington County suffer disproportionately when courts use debtors' prison practices and ignore individuals' financial realities."
The poverty rates for Black and Latino residents of Lexington County are more than double the rate for white residents.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled more than 30 years ago that jailing people only because they can't afford to pay court fines violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The court made clear that judges can't jail someone for failure to pay without first considering their ability to pay, efforts to acquire money, and alternatives to incarceration.
"Around the country, courts are recognizing the injustices inherent in debtors' prison practices and undergoing reforms. Officials in Lexington County should do the same," said Toby Marshall, founding member of the Terrell Marshall Law Group.
The complaint, Brown v. Lexington County, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina. It cites violations of the Fourth and Sixth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution in addition to the 14th.
For the complaint and more information about the lawsuit:
https://www.aclu.org/cases/brown-et-al-v-lexington
For information about the ACLU of South Carolina:
https://www.aclusc.org/
For information about Terrell Marshall Law Group PLLC:
https://terrellmarshall.com/
This press release can be found at:
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-challenges-unconstitutional-debtors-prison-practices-south-carolina-county
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
'We Are Focused on Ending the War,' Says Iranian Foreign Ministry After Trump Threatens More Suffering
“We are currently concentrated on ending the war in the region, including in Lebanon,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei, who added that "no nuclear negotiations” are happening at this stage.
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A spokesperson for Iran's Foreign Ministry on Sunday said the Iranian leadership is reviewing the response issued by the US government over the weekend following a 14-point plan offered by Tehran to bring the unpopular war started by President Donald Trump—now in its third month—to an end.
“The Americans have given their answer to Iran’s 14-point plan to the Pakistani side, and we are currently reviewing it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said in an interview with Iranian television.
Baghaei said that the offered framework is strictly focused on ending the immediate hostilities and that the plan contains "absolutely no details regarding the country’s nuclear issues," which he suggested could be discussed at a later time.
“We are not currently engaged in any negotiations over the nuclear issue, and decisions about the future will be made in due course,” he said, even though Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth have continued to claim the preventing the Iranians from having a nuclear weapons program—which Tehran denies having and US intelligence assessments have shown does not exist in the manner that US officials describe it—is central to their war aims.
“I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us," Trump said in a social media post on Saturday, "but can’t imagine that it would be acceptable in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity and the World, over the last 47 years."
Despite some reporting examining what's purportedly in the Iranian proposal, the exact details of the 14-point plan remain murky or contentious, depending on who you ask. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, gave his assessment of the current situation on Sunday by saying:
Overall, the Iranians appear to be pursuing a grand bargain—without labeling it as such. This is not merely a proposal aimed at securing a ceasefire, or even a formal end to the current conflict, but rather an attempt to resolve the broader US-Iran antagonism that has persisted for the past 47 years. Implicit in this approach is an expectation that both sides would also restrain their respective regional partners and proxies (Israel, Hezbollah, etc.). In many respects, framing the proposal in this way may align more effectively with Trump’s instincts and psychology.
Meanwhile, a poll out Friday showed that 61% of Americans believe Trump's launching of the war was a mistake, and an even higher number (66%) disapprove of how he's handling the conflict. The same ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll also showed that Trump is now facing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency.
Speaking with Al-Jazeera over the weekend, Parsi explained that Trump's maximalist demands, including the blockade that it has tried to impose on Iran near the Strait of Hormuz, have made negotiations much more difficult:
Trump had time on his side during the ceasefire - until he imposed the blockade per the recommendation of FDD, Israel, and Lindsey Graham. Though the blockade is hurting Iran, it has ended up hurting Trump more, with oil prices now exceeding where they were even during the war… pic.twitter.com/wNSbvjtwSz
— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) May 3, 2026
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Fascinating footage released by the IRGC of a class at the org's staff college in the 90s, where future IRGC leader Hossein Salami teaches a course on asymmetric warfare, teaching officers how to drag out a war with the US by driving up economic costs and political turmoil. pic.twitter.com/et5ZVFIEMi
— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) May 2, 2026
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That strategy, as Malekafzali paraphrases it, is "to drag out a war with the US by driving up economic costs and political turmoil," thereby draining the US and sapping its power by inflicting economic pain and political pressure.
As many foreign policy observers have pointed out since Trump launched the war, the strategy of Iran to inflict pain on US allies in the region and economic pain at a global level—such as has been achieved by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz—is very much what Salami describes.
As geopolitical analyst Misbah Qasemi explained, Salami's point was basically this: "Don't match their strength (air power, technology). Attack their weaknesses (economic endurance, political will, domestic opinion). Drag them into your terrain—maritime, cyber, proxy networks—where their advantages neutralize themselves."
This point was made explicitly by Harrison Mann, a fellow with the advocacy group Win Without War, during a Sunday appearance on CNN, where he explained how this plays out in practical terms.
Told @brikeilarcnn: The "good news" is Iran won't become another quagmire because, unlike other countries the US has picked on in the region, Iran can actually inflict pain back on the US. In this case via economic warfare, which is not sustainable for Trump in the long run. pic.twitter.com/lwySB2BLca
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As the US voting public continues to express its discontent over the disastrous war of choice against Iran that US President Donald Trump launched just over two months ago, fresh criticism followed after weekend reporting revealed the administration skirted congressional review to approve an $8.6 billion weapons deal with the United Arab Emirates and other allies in the Middle East.
Announced Friday night quietly by the US State Department, as the New York Times reports, the "sales would entail the transfer of rockets to Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates and air-defense equipment to Qatar and Kuwait."
According to the Times:
Under the terms of the deal with Qatar, the Gulf country would pay more than $4 billion for American-made Patriot missile interceptors — global stockpiles of which have dwindled during the war with Iran.
Israel, the Emirates and Qatar would receive an Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, which fires laser-guided rockets. Kuwait also purchased an advanced aerial defense system for about $2.5 billion.
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"No comment," said Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in an eye-rolling response to the news on social media.
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"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said one watchdog group who called the leak of personal information "a goldmine for identity thieves" and other fraudsters.
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A newly reported failure of the Trump administration's ability to handle sensitive private information in the social programs it is tasked with operating triggered a fresh wave of anger over the weekend after it was revealed that healthcare providers' Social Security numbers were made public as part of a faulty Medicare portal rollout.
The Washington Post discovered the compromised database and alerted the administration last week, before publishing a story about it on Friday, after efforts had been made to protect the sensitive information from further compromise.
According to the Post:
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last year created a directory to help seniors look up which doctors and medical providers accept which insurance plans, framing it as an overdue improvement and part of the Trump administration’s initiative to modernize health care technology.
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“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes."
Critics pounced on the new reporting, calling it "yet another mess-up by the Team Trump" and only the latest evidence that the administration cannot and should not be trusted to protect the nation's most successful anti-poverty programs or the sensitive personal data of the American people who entrust the government with that information.
"Over and over again, the Trump administration is exposing private Social Security data," said Social Security Works, an advocacy group that serves as a public watchdog for the nation's social programs.
The compromised database, said the group, "is a goldmine for identity thieves, scammers, and foreign governments. And it is undermining the very foundation of our Social Security system."
"This is a failure by this administration," said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) in response to the reporting. "Exposing Social Security numbers, whether patients or providers, is unacceptable."
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the House committee that oversees the Medicare program, put the onus on his Republican colleagues in Congress.
“The more we learn about how the Trump Administration handles the people’s most sensitive data, the clearer their incompetence becomes,” Neal told the Post in a statement. “Do House Republicans need to see their own data exposed before they do right by their constituents and act?”
In March, as Common Dreams reported at the time, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Social Security Administration accusing a former staffer with Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), run for a time by right-wing billionaire Elon Musk, of trying to share information from SSA databases with his private employer.
Since the outset of Trump's second term, DOGE's meddling with Social Security and Trump's undermining of the program have been the source of deep anger and concerns among the program's defenders.
In a social media post on Saturday citing the whistleblower allegations from March, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) said, "For more than a year, 'DOGE' has been combing through the American people's records. They want to use your data to overturn elections and profit in the private sector. Enough! This administration must be held accountable for this massive data breach!
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