35 Days in Jail for Bouncing $29 Check? No Justice for the 99%

Nikki Petree was released last Thursday after spending 35 days in county jail for bouncing a $28.93 check five years ago. Judge Milas Hale, who is accused of running a modern-day debtors' prison in Sherwood, Ark., sentenced the woman to jail; the Huffington Post reports Petree has been arrested seven times in connection with that charge and has already paid the city at least $640. She told the Post she still owes the city $1,300.

"Every time [I’d] go to jail, they’d let me out immediately for $100,” Petree said in an interview. “They’d turn around and add $600 or $700 more to my bond. I couldn’t afford to pay. They cornered me, and there was no way out from underneath it. I felt overwhelmed and hopeless."

Petree said prior to her sentencing, Judge Hale asked Petree how much money she could pay today. “I started to explain to him I’ve been in and out of the hospital two or three times in the past year,” Petree said.

'I offered community service, I offered weekends in jail, but before I could even get those two sentences out of my mouth, he sentenced me to 90 days in county jail, and he didn’t want to hear nothing from me.”...
http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/ark-woman-spent-35-days-jail-bouncing-29-check