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| This is a case about bills. Get it? |
By Elizabeth Kruska
Eisenhower. Howard. Schrute. These are some of your more well-known Dwights.
This case is State v. Dwight and it’s about restitution. It’s not about inventing the Interstate Highway System, or getting picked first overall in the NBA draft, or growing beets.
Basically, it’s this. Mr. Dwight punched a Mr. Richards. This resulted in Mr. Dwight being charged with an assault charge and Mr. Richards having some pretty significant damage to his teeth and gums. It cost him about $21,000 for treatment to fix his teeth. Mr. Richards doesn’t have a money tree growing in his yard, or sufficient (if any) dental insurance to cover the expense. Mr. Richards was a college student when this happened. His parents were helping him pay for school. His dad also doesn’t have a money tree and gave him a choice: use the money the parents would have used for school for school, or use it for fixing your teeth. Mr. Richard went with the teeth option and took out a loan to pay for school. He went to the dentist, and dad paid the dental bill.
And if that last paragraph doesn’t explain what’s wrong with both our healthcare and higher education systems all at once, I don’t know what will. Just my opinion. Don’t @ me.
Mr. Dwight ultimately pled to a charge of simple assault, and had a hearing on restitution. The trial court took evidence about both his ability to pay and his future ability to pay. The court ordered that Mr. Dwight pay Mr. Richards the $21,441.15 at the rate of $300/month. A little quick math tells me that unless he pays off his restitution obligation sooner, it’ll take him 6 years to do this.
Mr. Dwight appealed for a couple reasons, neither of which were persuasive to the Vermont Supreme Court, which affirmed the trial court.
Here’s how restitution goes in criminal cases. A defendant is liable for uninsured, out-of-pocket costs that are directly related to the offense. The trial court has to make findings about both the amount of restitution to be paid, as well as the defendant’s ability to pay the restitution.
There doesn’t seem to be a disagreement that Mr. Richards’s four broken teeth and related gum damage are related to Mr. Dwight punching him in the face. So, let’s move on from that.
Mr. Dwight makes a novel argument, though, that since Mr. Richards’s dad paid the dental bill, rather than Mr. Richards himself, that the court can’t order this reimbursement. As his argument goes, Dad Richards is not the victim of the crime (Young Mr. Richards is) and therefore is not eligible for reimbursement under the statute.
SCOV gives a hard “nope” on this one. It’s clear that Mr. Richards is the victim of the crime. He suffered a loss, and the fact of that loss is not changed by who paid the dental bill. SCOV doesn’t come out and say it, but it seems like the point is that a defendant doesn’t get to punch someone’s teeth out and then get excused from paying for the damage just because someone else stepped in to help the victim with his bills.
Part two of this is the repayment schedule. Most people don’t have $21,000 kicking around, so there’s got to be a way to figure out repayment. The court is charged with the duty of determining the defendant’s ability to pay.
Here, the trial court looked not only at Mr. Dwight’s current earnings, but also his ability to earn in the future. Mr. Dwight argued that they shouldn’t be able to look at his future earnings, and also that the amount per month he was ordered to pay was impermissibly punitive.
SCOV also agrees with the trial court on this point. The restitution statute is set up so that if someone doesn’t have the current ability to pay the full amount, that the court has to determine the rate at which they can pay the full amount. That seems to contemplate future payments, and future payments are going to be dependent upon future earnings.
Here, Mr. Dwight was working at a job about 35 hours per week, making $14 per hour. The trial court observed that Mr. Dwight could be working a 40 hour week, which would increase his wages and thus increase his ability to pay off his restitution obligation. The court based its order on Mr. Dwight working a 40 hour week. Mr. Dwight finds this to be punitive; the point of restitution is not to punish him but to repay Mr. Richards. And he had the ability to make that repayment at the rate of $150 per month under his current work schedule and pay. SCOV says this isn’t punitive because the court could properly consider Mr. Dwight’s future earning capacity.
There’s a separate opinion by Justice Robinson. She agrees that there was a material loss to Mr. Richards and that he needs to be compensated. There’s disagreement about using a defendant’s future earning capacity to determine the monthly payment amount.
The disagreement is basically this. The trial court overstepped its bounds basically adding an additional requirement to Mr. Dwight that he work or engage in an additional work search. Sure, he’s working now, and he will probably keep working. But the assumption that he will be able to find additional work at his current rate of pay would require that he get either an additional job or engage in work training for a different job, implicitly adds a work-based requirement to his sentence.
Also, Justice Robinson isn’t so sure the Legislature meant for trial courts to go this far in determining future earning ability for defendants. The Legislature has spelled out pretty clearly in the child support statutes what a court can order a parent to do if that parent appears to be voluntarily underemployed. The Legislature didn’t decide to do that in the criminal restitution statute. I think the thought here is that the Legislature knows how to write something like that in to a statute, and since they didn’t do that here, courts shouldn’t do what the trial court did here.
Eisenhower. Howard. Schrute. These are some of your more well-known Dwights.
This case is State v. Dwight and it’s about restitution. It’s not about inventing the Interstate Highway System, or getting picked first overall in the NBA draft, or growing beets.
Basically, it’s this. Mr. Dwight punched a Mr. Richards. This resulted in Mr. Dwight being charged with an assault charge and Mr. Richards having some pretty significant damage to his teeth and gums. It cost him about $21,000 for treatment to fix his teeth. Mr. Richards doesn’t have a money tree growing in his yard, or sufficient (if any) dental insurance to cover the expense. Mr. Richards was a college student when this happened. His parents were helping him pay for school. His dad also doesn’t have a money tree and gave him a choice: use the money the parents would have used for school for school, or use it for fixing your teeth. Mr. Richard went with the teeth option and took out a loan to pay for school. He went to the dentist, and dad paid the dental bill.
And if that last paragraph doesn’t explain what’s wrong with both our healthcare and higher education systems all at once, I don’t know what will. Just my opinion. Don’t @ me.
Mr. Dwight ultimately pled to a charge of simple assault, and had a hearing on restitution. The trial court took evidence about both his ability to pay and his future ability to pay. The court ordered that Mr. Dwight pay Mr. Richards the $21,441.15 at the rate of $300/month. A little quick math tells me that unless he pays off his restitution obligation sooner, it’ll take him 6 years to do this.
Mr. Dwight appealed for a couple reasons, neither of which were persuasive to the Vermont Supreme Court, which affirmed the trial court.
Here’s how restitution goes in criminal cases. A defendant is liable for uninsured, out-of-pocket costs that are directly related to the offense. The trial court has to make findings about both the amount of restitution to be paid, as well as the defendant’s ability to pay the restitution.
There doesn’t seem to be a disagreement that Mr. Richards’s four broken teeth and related gum damage are related to Mr. Dwight punching him in the face. So, let’s move on from that.
Mr. Dwight makes a novel argument, though, that since Mr. Richards’s dad paid the dental bill, rather than Mr. Richards himself, that the court can’t order this reimbursement. As his argument goes, Dad Richards is not the victim of the crime (Young Mr. Richards is) and therefore is not eligible for reimbursement under the statute.
SCOV gives a hard “nope” on this one. It’s clear that Mr. Richards is the victim of the crime. He suffered a loss, and the fact of that loss is not changed by who paid the dental bill. SCOV doesn’t come out and say it, but it seems like the point is that a defendant doesn’t get to punch someone’s teeth out and then get excused from paying for the damage just because someone else stepped in to help the victim with his bills.
Part two of this is the repayment schedule. Most people don’t have $21,000 kicking around, so there’s got to be a way to figure out repayment. The court is charged with the duty of determining the defendant’s ability to pay.
Here, the trial court looked not only at Mr. Dwight’s current earnings, but also his ability to earn in the future. Mr. Dwight argued that they shouldn’t be able to look at his future earnings, and also that the amount per month he was ordered to pay was impermissibly punitive.
SCOV also agrees with the trial court on this point. The restitution statute is set up so that if someone doesn’t have the current ability to pay the full amount, that the court has to determine the rate at which they can pay the full amount. That seems to contemplate future payments, and future payments are going to be dependent upon future earnings.
Here, Mr. Dwight was working at a job about 35 hours per week, making $14 per hour. The trial court observed that Mr. Dwight could be working a 40 hour week, which would increase his wages and thus increase his ability to pay off his restitution obligation. The court based its order on Mr. Dwight working a 40 hour week. Mr. Dwight finds this to be punitive; the point of restitution is not to punish him but to repay Mr. Richards. And he had the ability to make that repayment at the rate of $150 per month under his current work schedule and pay. SCOV says this isn’t punitive because the court could properly consider Mr. Dwight’s future earning capacity.
There’s a separate opinion by Justice Robinson. She agrees that there was a material loss to Mr. Richards and that he needs to be compensated. There’s disagreement about using a defendant’s future earning capacity to determine the monthly payment amount.
The disagreement is basically this. The trial court overstepped its bounds basically adding an additional requirement to Mr. Dwight that he work or engage in an additional work search. Sure, he’s working now, and he will probably keep working. But the assumption that he will be able to find additional work at his current rate of pay would require that he get either an additional job or engage in work training for a different job, implicitly adds a work-based requirement to his sentence.
Also, Justice Robinson isn’t so sure the Legislature meant for trial courts to go this far in determining future earning ability for defendants. The Legislature has spelled out pretty clearly in the child support statutes what a court can order a parent to do if that parent appears to be voluntarily underemployed. The Legislature didn’t decide to do that in the criminal restitution statute. I think the thought here is that the Legislature knows how to write something like that in to a statute, and since they didn’t do that here, courts shouldn’t do what the trial court did here.
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