Tres and Heather Biggs' son Lane was diagnosed with leukemia when he was 5 years old. At the same time, Heather suffered seizures from Lyme disease. "We had so many — multiple health issues in our family at the same time, it put us in a bracket that made insurance unattainable," Heather Biggs said. "It would have made no sense. We would have had to have not eaten, not had a home."
"I was scared to death," Tres Biggs said. "I'm a country kid — I had to strip down, get hosed and put a jumpsuit on." Bail was $500. He said they had "maybe $50 to $100" at the time.
In rural Coffeyville, Kansas, where the poverty rate is twice the national average, attorneys like Michael Hassenplug have built successful law practices representing medical providers to collect debt owed by their neighbors. "I'm just doing my job," Hassenplug said. "They want the money collected, and I'm trying to do my job as best I can by following the law."
That law was put in place at Hassenplug's own recommendation to the local judge. Hassenplug said he gets "paid on what's collected." If the bail money is applied to the judgment, then he gets a portion of that, he said.
In most courts, bail money is returned when defendants appear in court. But in almost every case in Coffeyville, that money goes to pay attorneys like Hassenplug and the medical debt his clients are owed.
"This raises serious constitutional concerns," said Nusrat Choudhury, the deputy director of the ACLU. "What's happening here is a jailhouse shake-down for cash that is the criminalization of private debt."
CBS News