Without Funds to Pay Fines, Minor Incidents Can Mean Jail Time
Timothy Fugatt, the minister of music at this church near Childersburg, Alabama, says that it’s his deep faith in God that got him through some tough times. His son, Cole, was born with a rare brain disease.
TIM FUGATT: The spheres in his brain didn’t divide properly. So pretty much when you look through a CT scan, it was nothin’ but fluid.
But life got even tougher after a seemingly minor incident in December of 2010 when he was pulled over by police and ticketed for an expired license plate tag.
TIM FUGATT: I was coming from the hospital where had been staying with Cole there in the hospital. And as I come into town, they had- a traffic checkpoint.
Timothy’s wife, Kristy, had also gotten tickets for two traffic infractions and both were ordered to appear in the Childersburg municipal court. The Fugatts told the judge about their hospitalized son and were both found “not guilty”, as these court documents show. But the judge ruled that the two still had to pay “court costs” of about $500… .
More: Without Funds to Pay Fines, Minor Incidents Can Mean Jail Time