The Constitution guarantees the right to a lawyer and a jury trial for those charged with a crime. But, it’s not free, and the jury alone might cost you a minimum of one thousand dollars a day.
People convicted of felonies are hit with fines as punishment, but they’re also hit with fees to shift the administrative burden. That's why the Commonwealth Institute is calling on the Virginia General Assembly to eliminate user fees for jury trials and court-appointed counsel.
"This is a constitutional right," says Kami Blatt, a policy analyst at the Commonwealth Institute. "It is in the Constitution to have counsel and a jury trial if you would like it, and we are charging people for those rights. And it often is falling on people who have the least."
For a jury trial, the bill can be $50 dollars a day for every member of the jury and everyone called for the jury pool. Delegate Rae Cousins is a Democrat from Arlington who says these are people the courts have already declared are unable to pay for a lawyer.
"And then if that same indigent defendant is then convicted, the Commonwealth of Virginia is charging attorney's fees on the back end," Cousins says. "And that person will be responsible for paying those fees once they are released from incarceration."
Cousins had a bill to eliminate those fines last year, but it stalled in the Senate where it was not funded in the budget compromise. Next year, she says, she'll try again.
