Poverty keeps woman jailed
Day job off-site
not enough for expenses and $705 fine
By Carlos Campos
September 19, 2006
All Ora Lee Hurley has to do to get out of
prison is pay a $705 fine, according to her attorney.
But every month, she pays the Georgia Department of Corrections $600 for
room and board and spends $76 a month for a MARTA card, laundry and some
meals. As a result, Hurley has stayed locked up more than eight months past
her original 120-day sentence, according to a lawsuit filed Monday by the
Southern Center for Human Rights seeking her release.
This is another debtor's prison case," said Sarah Geraghty, a Southern
Center lawyer. "This is a situation where if this woman was able to write a
check for the amount of the fine, she would be out of there. And because she
can't, she's still in custody. It's as simple as that."
Hurley is an inmate held at the
Gateway
Diversion
Center in
Atlanta. She leaves the center for work five days a week at the
K&K Soul Food restaurant on
Donald L. Hollowell Parkway, earning
$6.50 an hour.
After taxes, she nets about $700 a month. Room and board at the diversion
center is $600 a month. She also pays $52 for a MARTA card, $4 for laundry
and $20 for meals every month. She has earned more than $7,000 while at the
diversion center, according to the lawsuit.
"Despite diligently working at a restaurant for nearly a year, turning her
check over to the [Georgia Department of Corrections] and fulfilling all of
the other requirements imposed by the diversion center, Ms. Hurley is still
in custody," the lawsuit, filed in Fulton County Superior Court, reads.
"She is being held at the diversion center because of her poverty."
In the lawsuit, the Southern Center for Human Rights cites cases that
prohibit the imprisonment of people whose poverty make it impossible to pay
a fine. The center is hoping the prison system will contact the judge to
alert them to Hurley's predicament, Geraghty said.
The Department of Corrections, as a matter of policy, does not comment on
lawsuits.
To be certain, Hurley, 45, has contributed to her own problems.
In 1990, she pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine and marijuana in
Sumter
County, according to the lawsuit. She was sentenced to
probation and a $750 fine. She paid $45 of her fine and failed to report for
probation, so a warrant for her arrest was issued in February 1991.
More than 14 years later, on July 12, 2005, she was arrested in
Americus for failure to report to probation for the 1990 charge,
failure to pay $705 of the fine and possession of a small amount of cocaine.
A judge revoked her probation and sent her to prison for a minimum of 120
days. He also ordered that she be held until her fine was paid in full.
Hurley does not work on Mondays and was at the diversion center, where she
could not immediately be reached for comment.
Geraghty said her client takes part in Narcotics Anonymous classes and
community service projects.
Keeping Hurley locked up costs taxpayers about $15,000 a year, Geraghty
noted.
"The diversion center is keeping her in there at great expense to the state
for no reason other than this fine," she said.
To read the Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus for Ora Lee Hurley,
click here.
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