Sometime in 1999, a citizen of Wichita, Kansas, filed a class action lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the city in Sedgwick County, Kansas District Court alleging that citizens' constitutional rights had been violated by the city and the Municipal Court, by holding people in contempt of court without proper hearing or legal counsel and jailing them or forced them to work at work release until their traffic or misdemeanor fines had been paid. We do not have a copy of the docket and do not know precisely when suit was filed.

Subsequent to the filing of the original class action petition, the Court conducted hearings on August 11, 2000 and December 1, 2000, and certified a class consisting of all persons on the "time-to-pay" docket who had been released from probation or their period of probation had expired, and who were incarcerated (taken into custody) or ordered to work in the Wichita Work Program due to a case on this docket during the time period of July 31, 1997 to March 9, 2000.

On May 7, 2002, Wichita's City Council approved a $6.2 million settlement to be awarded to the 7,000 citizens who had their 14th Amendment rights violated. The city admitted no wrongdoing in the matter, stating that they decided to settle the case rather than follow the trial through to the end. We have no further information on this case.

Kristen Sagar - 03/14/2006


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