Debtor's prison

[nancylebov]

http://www.tampabay.com/news/humaninterest/article847365.ece

Man jailed indefinitely for neglecting his lawn.

[Poll #1277189]

Comments

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think I'd raise money from others also, but realistically, I'd probably just donate money myself.

What I don't understand is why the only issue discussed is getting sod (which is expensive) and not reseeding (which he would do himself & which is relatively cheap). Maybe the climate in Florida demands sod, but I dunno. Otherwise, if the home association required sod, they're just being pissants; but if he wouldn't reseed, then I wonder if more than poverty was going on here.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The article says that he thought paying the mortgage was more important. I don't know if that counts as depression or as an ordinary human response to stress.

What else do you think might have been going on? Past conflicts with the home owners association?

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

The money thing is why I wonder about sod (hundreds of dollars) vs. seed (maybe $40-$80?). Seed still costs money, but usually a home-owner can eke that much money out of somewhere.

I'm sure that some kind of depression/inertia was going on--the whole thing goes back to not having a working sprinkler, which is, what, $12 if you go to a discount place. But beyond that, yeah, I think there might have been some kind of ongoing conflict, or maybe just resentment on the guy's part.

When we got flack about our lawn at a rented house, we started mowing it carefully but put up pink flamingos as a silent protest.

Sitting in judgment from the safety of my barcalounger

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

Other: work with the home owner and the association to find a compromise.

Lawn services aren't that expensive especially if they're already doing the neighbor's lawns. If it's that important to his neighbors they can pitch in money- and time-wise. They can also pay the ridiculous court fees themselves; no one asked them to hire any of those people, they were simply looking to either punish him or force him to move by paupering him.

This is not a criminal offense...he's not a danger to himself or others, his actinos do not cause a danger to others: there is no need for him to be jailed.

[llennhoff.livejournal.com]

Work to get sensible people on the board of the homeowner's association, then modify the covenant to deal with this situation somehow - either provide an exemption for financial need or something else.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

That's interesting about the sprinkler. When I read that he couldn't afford to have a working sprinkler, I assumed it meant he had a complicated expensive underground automated sprinkling system. Your hypothesis is at least as reasonable.

We don't really know about the sprinkler. I suspect I was reflexively giving the article a science fictional reading.

[wouldyoueva.livejournal.com]

If you go to the HOA website, they have the deed restrictions on a PDF, and it says sod.

I'm wondering just how much hate mail the HOA association president (president@bwcai.org) is getting over this.

They also have a picture of their board on their site, and whadda know? Nine white people. Go figure.

[quarkwiz.livejournal.com]

Looks like their site is getting slammed; I can't get in.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Other: Be in jail for having a brown lawn.

This is why we carefully made sure to not live some place with a homeowners association. An HOA is a government with no Bill of Rights run by people who have nothing better to do. In short, argocracy: rule by the unemployed.

[demonspawnmom.livejournal.com]

If I'm not mistaken, there's a drought in Florida at this time. Grass takes a lot of water to maintain. There are alternative plants that are appropriate for the climate.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

I have a pretty strict rule of thumb against living anywhere that has a homeowners' association in the deed covenant, for exactly this kind of reason. There is nothing more malevolent, nor less accountable, than an out-of-control homeowners' association.

This isn't even that unique a case, it's the kind of thing that groups like this are famous for. The whole reason that homeowners' associations exist is the fear that you'll do something with your property that lowers the value of theirs, but that they can't get voters to ban. With house prices declining steadily and their own mortgages about to reset, they're terrified of every little thing that might hurt their property values, and this guy's lawn probably knocks at least a thousand bucks, maybe ten thousand bucks, off of the assessed value of every house on the block.

I'd love to see a summary of what evidence they presented to suggest that it was within this guy's ability to do what they wanted. On the other hand, they may not have had to, because I've yet to see a homeowners' association covenant that had a hardship clause.

[siderea]

Um, go out with a hose and water the lawn periodically?

I have great sympathy for the dude's hardship, both financial and emotional. But he's not in jail for not taking care of his lawn. He's in jail for contempt of court. I'm open to explanation as to why this is an egregious miscarriage of justice, but on the face of it, he signed a contract, was in violation, was taken to court, lost, and then refused to do what the court ordered him to do. If you grant, as I do, that protecting the idea that civil court judges' commands are orders and not just suggestions, then a contempt of court finding is both appropriate and necessary.

Our civil court system is meant to help prevent escalating feud conducted through interpersonal violence by providing a venue for non-violent, impartial resolution to conflicts. If those resolutions don't have force of law, we go back to people burning down one another's houses.

[inertiacrept.livejournal.com]

Mow his lawn.

[cellio]

Word.

When I read the article my reaction was "there has to be more to it". Things like this don't go to contempt rulings in one round. The article says he ignored letters and a summons; this says to me that he didn't even try to plead his case. Why is that? What's going on between him and the HOA? Yes, HOAs are often out of control; he chose to subject himself to one.

I'm sypathetic to his problem, but he had options at every step along the way, near as I can tell.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

If that guy's house gets foreclosed, it'll lower their property values, and I think it will lower them more than just a bad lawn would.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Is it usual to not have bail in such cases?

[redbird]

Yes. Contempt of court is a summary conviction, not an indictment; bail after sentencing is unusual.

[siderea]

Every contempt of court case I've ever heard of had no bail and was indefinite until compliance with the judge's orders. I don't know if that's standard or not: most of the one's I know of involve things like reporters refusing to reveal the identity of their sources.

[siderea]

Wikipedia sez:

The civil sanction for contempt (which is typically incarceration in the custody of the sheriff or similar court officer) is limited in its imposition for so long as the disobedience to the court's order continues: once the party complies with the court's order, the sanction is lifted. The imposed party is said to "hold the keys" to his or her own cell, thus conventional due process is not required.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I'd only heard "hold the keys" before in prisoner abuse cases-- it sounds to me like a way of the authority taking no responsibility for what it's doing.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

More discussion, from libertarian angles.

Best comment: nobahdi | October 12th, 2008 at 12:32 pm

“It’s a sad situation,” said board president Bob Ryan, who added that the association had followed all the correct procedures.

When will people stop “doing their job” and start using some fucking common sense?

An anti-lawn rant about the story

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Well, it's possible that he did have the underground system & it did break down, but you don't have to use it--say $12 for the sprinkler & $20 to $40 for a hose. (They don't disconnect your outside faucets when you get such systems put in.) I can see someone thinking, OMG, now that the expensive system is down, there's no help but to fix it, but that wouldn't be true.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Thanks for looking that up! Yeah, sod is expensive.

Makes me glad we don't have a HOA! Dealing with the stupid city permits to get our retaining wall rebuilt was bad enough.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was thinking that the whole idea of a lawn is an expensive affectation in a lot of places; I wasn't sure whether Florida was such a place or not.

It's an interesting issue. I grew up in the midwest, and not having a grass lawn still just seems wrong to me, but intellectually I know xeriscaping makes more sense. I think some people see lawns in dry places as a triumph, a conquest over nature, and I don't feel at all that way. Actually, it's plain dirt that seems wrong to me: I'd be happy with a yard of much lower-maintenance ground-cover--& now, in the NYC area, I do have whole areas of ground cover (sweet woodruff, ajuga, Chinese creeping astilbe, others) instead of grass.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

No, this makes sense to me: the sentence is not punishment, but rather a tool to get the person to do something (give up a source's name, reveal records, comply with the judge's order in some way). It's like a parent saying, "You'll go up to your room until you come down ready to apologize." A tool of power, yes; unjust only if we assume that the original thing-one-must-comply-with is unjust.

With this explanation of the law, it just sounds like an overall sad situation to me: something that could have been fixed, but people got unwilling to compromise. Once the law is called in, it's just enforcing a written contract.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Some of the links pointed out that the usual way to handle something like this is to put a lien on his money rather than jailing him.

In that case, it looks as though the question is whether this is about the money or about compliance.

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Depends on the neighborhood, depends on the bank. The two foreclosures on my block are both getting substantial repairs that the previous owners couldn't afford (for the same reason he couldn't re-sod his lawn, teaser-rate mortgage resets).

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Clarification: I marked "Wreck teh home associations' lawns," but what I actually mean is fertilize them, in a natural organic sort of way.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

If you do that intensely enough, doesn't the lawn get chemically burnt?

[sturgeonslawyer.livejournal.com]

Sure. But if anyone asked me I would just say I was helping the police spread lawn ordure.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Ouch!