Ramsey County Law Library Blog

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) proposed a rule last week aimed at curbing predatory payday lending by requiring lenders to take steps to ensure that consumers can repay said loans, and also to cut off repeated debit attempts that rack up fees against the borrower.  The CFPB referred to such loans as “debt traps,” due to the fees and penalties that users may not be aware of.  Fees can be assessed for either extending the loan or defaulting on it.  Since the loans are recouped directly from bank accounts, bank overdraft penalties are another common result.  These fees add insult to the injury in that such lenders may be charging interest fees of 300% or more.  The CFPB proposal brought attention to the plight of the vulnerable consumers that take out these payday loans and get caught in the debt cycle, but it also highlights the plight of those who decide to use such loans in the first place.  Opponents of this proposal pointed out that these loans serve people that might have few if any alternatives otherwise, so the question becomes whether or not these loans are a helping hand or “predatory quicksand.”  Read the entire CFPB report here.

The issue of payday loans is not new in Minnesota.  Minnesota’s payday loans statute requires lenders to check the credit history of their customers, and limits such loans to only four per customer within a year.  Last fall the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the state’s payday lending law, which curbs high-interest, short-term loans.  In State of Minnesota vs. Integrity Advance LLC, the Court held in a suit brought by the Minnesota Attorney General that MN Statutes §47.60 and §47.601 are not violations of the commerce clause, because they only regulate commerce within the state.  Here is how Minnesota law compares to that of other states in the regulation of payday loan services.

If you are considering taking out a payday loan, read this fact sheet from the Minnesota Attorney General’s office first. If you have found yourself ensnared in a “debt trap” that started with a payday loan, there are some legal resources you might turn to. Pro bono organizations like Volunteer Lawyers Network (VLN) can offer debt collection defense for qualified individuals.  If you are currently facing collection efforts brought against you in Conciliation Court, you may be eligible to speak to an attorney through our Housing and Conciliation Court clinic.

Our law library proudly promotes local criminal expungement resources to our patrons or others who might benefit from them. We are in partnership with the Second Judicial District, Volunteer Lawyers Network (VLN), and the Saint Paul Public Library to bring criminal expungement workshops to the public. Thus we were interested in the recent the Minnesota Court of Appeals decision in the case of State v. S.A.M, which involved a Rochester man seeking expungement of his 2003 felony conviction.  The Court held that his record could not be expunged because his previous guilty plea was to a charge not included in the list of expungible felonies under Minn. Stat. §609A.02.  It didn’t matter that the conviction in this case was subsequently “deemed a misdemeanor” per plea bargain terms.  Further, the Court declined to apply the language of sentencing statute Minn. Stat. §609.13 in order to make the appellant’s felony a misdemeanor for expungement purposes, because the original judgment was entered as a felony and not a misdemeanor.   This case is examined in this week’s issue of Minnesota Lawyer.

It’s not unusual for criminal defendants to plead guilty to a different charge in order to reach a quicker (and legally affordable) resolution to their prosecutions.  According to the U.S. Department of Justice, 90 to 95 percent of all criminal cases nationwide are resolved through plea bargains.  The expungement law does not specifically address situations where petitioners might have received a stay on a felony charge which was then converted to a misdemeanor. This gap in the law potentially leaves hundreds of expungement petitioners without the second chance remedy heralded by the 2014 expungement overhaul.  Indeed, the Court noted with some sympathy that its ruling  reveals a distinct hole in the expungement net, but held that it was up to the legislature to provide any needed clarification.

Does this ruling leave you with questions on if or how your expungement petition might be affected? Don’t reach any conclusions before discussing your case with an attorney.  If you are just starting to consider expungement, try a VLN seminar at a local public library. If you are preparing your petition paperwork, come to the Second Judicial District’s criminal expungement workshop which meets on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month here in the law library.

Much discussion has resulted from the ten-segment Netflix documentary Making a Murderer, which focused on the convictions of Wisconsinite Steven Avery and his nephew Brendan Dassey.  While this riveting documentary didn’t address all the evidence involved in this real-live case, it did spark troubling questions about the criminal justice process itself: How precise is our system of determining if one is guilty or innocent? How safe is our criminal justice system from possible corruption and bias at the local level? How much of our system is fueled by a human need to believe that the dangerous people are safely locked up and cannot harm us?  And are remedies like the appeals process or habeas corpus adequate for such justice errors?These are not mere abstract questions, for doubts and mistakes regarding guilt and innocence have existed for as long as criminal justice has. The trial and evidence leading to Minnesota’s first individual execution left major doubts as to the convicted’s guilt. As DNA technology emerged, many criminal convictions were found to be erroneous, including Avery’s earlier conviction.  Most wrongful convictions, however, involve non-DNA factors.

Avery’s situation is not cause for Minnesotans to feel smug and safe in their own state from justice failures like wrongful convictions. The case of Richard Dzubiak was one of a St. Paul man convicted of killing his mother by pushing her down the stairs. It later came to light that the original forensic report had been misread, and that the victim had in fact died from a fatal self-inflicted dose of antidepressants. Dzubiak then filed a motion to withdraw his guilty plea and receive a new trial, which was granted and resulted in his acquittal.  Another St. Paul man, Sherman Townsend, was charged with burglary of a Minneapolis residence on the word of the real burglar.  While Townsend was in prison serving the resulting sentence he received as part of a plea bargain, he met the actual burglar who was serving time on a different offense.  Fortunately this actual burglar stepped forward this time and testified that he had in fact committed the burglary, which led to an agreement between Townsend and prosecutors to have Townsend’s sentence commuted.  (It should be noted here that Townsend was an ex-con when the burglary occurred, which likely weakened his bargaining position with prosecutors.)

If you want to read more on the history and theory of wrongful convictions, consider these titles available at the Minnesota State Law Library:  Examining Wrongful Convictions: Stepping Back, Moving Morward (2014) by A. Redlich, et al., and False Justice: Eight Myths that Convict the Innocent (2011) by Jim and Nancy Petro.  Also check out the National Registry of Exonerations at the University of Michigan Law School.  If you or a relative has experienced what they believe is a wrongful conviction, know that challenging it is not a small legal task. You are strongly encouraged to work with a lawyer when exploring what possible post-conviction remedies you may have.  You can find a criminal lawyer through the Ramsey County Bar Association, or through the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.  Also consider contacting the Minnesota Innocence Project.