
US Marshals arresting people for not paying their federal student loans - salmonet
http://www.fox26houston.com/news/local-news/92232732-story
======
fiatmoney
"those attorneys and debt collectors are getting judgements in federal court
and asking judges to use the US Marshals Service to arrest those who have
failed to pay their federal student loans"

The US Marshals enforce (federal) court orders. He was subject to a court
order mandating the payment of a debt. It's not like he fell into arrears and
they "just showed up". If it was a mortgage debt, or an eviction proceeding,
typically it'd be the local sheriff.

No story.

~~~
gist
> No story.

And in particular $1500 owed since 1987, almost 30 years ago. Now of course we
don't know when the last payment was but it makes sense that they would pull
an enforcement list based on age of debt and also perhaps smaller amounts
where it was clear that the debtor was making no attempt to pay off the debt.

~~~
sjg007
Why didn't they take it from his tax returns?

~~~
adventured
He might not have had much or anything in the way of tax returns. For example
if he was working under the table a lot, in construction or dozens of other
trades.

------
slapshot
Really suspiciously light on details. This sounds like a judge issued a bench
warrant and he ignored it (didn't go to court on the date he was supposed to
go to court). A bench warrant us essentially an order to appear before a court
under pain of arrest. If you ignore it, the law enforcement agency with the
appropriate jurisdiction (in this case, U.S Marshals) will go "encourage" you
to show up.

A student loan debt may be the initial reason for the bench warrant (somebody
may have tried to collect and the court issued a summons to get him to show up
at court and explain why he isn't paying) --- but all he had to do to avoid
the problem was to show up... not necessarily pay.

~~~
deckar01
A more accurate title would be "US Marshals arresting people with warrants for
not appearing in federal court".

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elthran
>He says seven deputy US Marshals showed up at his home with guns

Would I be wrong in thinking all US Marshals would be armed at all times, and
the article is trying to make this sound like a SWAT raid?

Not that I condone this method of debt collecting - the article seems very
light on details. I want to assume that they wrote letters etc before they
sent in federal police in order to collect debts.

(UK resident)

~~~
MrMember
You are correct, a US Marshal would almost certainly be armed while on duty.

~~~
fiatmoney
Not only are they armed, they have a reputation for unusually thuggish
behavior, since they know it's unlikely a federal court will discipline their
own enforcement body.

------
peter303
This article suggests "contempt of court" for not paying civil judgements.
Sounds like this will be tested before the Supreme Court some day.

[http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-new-bill-
collecto...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-new-bill-collector-
tactic-jail-time.html)

------
ph33t
Call me a right-wing loony ... but why aren't we questioning why the
government is giving out loans in the first place. Since the proliferation of
government student loans in the last 30 years the cost of higher education has
gone up significantly. The loans aren't working and enforcing them is a no-win
situation.

~~~
diyorgasms
Because the alternative is to offer the poor no opportunity to improve their
financial situation through education. Permanent hopeless underclasses do not
make for a stable society.

~~~
adventured
No the alternative was to have properly capped student loans to restrain the
cost growth, instead of feeding an extreme inflation cycle by enabling an out-
of-proportion growth of those loans.

The solution was trivially easy: lock student loan growth to the CPI. Instead
the US Government drastically inflated the cost of college by funding student
loans _far_ beyond the rate of inflation and with zero concern for the
potential to be paid back (perfect setup for a bubble and crash). Universities
proceeded to go on an epic and unnecessary building and administration
expansion spree, vaporizing hundreds of billions of dollars. All courtesy of
the US Government's access to practically unlimited free money (the loaned out
sum of which it's now yielding a higher profit on than the combined profit of
JP Morgan and Wells Fargo; one of the greatest slush funds in world history).

------
Lawtonfogle
What is the difference between debtors prison and a court system that will
rule on a debt, create a court order to pay, and then arrest you for not
paying? It sounds like the same thing by another name.

~~~
fiatmoney
He was "arrested" in the sense that he was brought into court and forced to
show compliance with the court's order (in this case, by signing a payment
plan). He was not "imprisoned for a debt". There are legal mechanisms to show
inability to pay & the court order is supposed to reflect that, even for non-
dischargable debts.

~~~
mywittyname
This man absolutely was imprisoned for debt. Being compelled by the court to
either pay your debt or go to prison is, by very definition, being imprisoned
for failure to pay a debt.

The court should have ordered the seizure of bank assets to cover the debt. In
no way should owning money ever result in jail time, fines, judgements or
otherwise.

~~~
greggyb
From the fine article, emphasis mine:

> He says seven deputy US Marshals showed up at his home with guns and _took
> him to federal court_ where he had to sign a payment plan for the 29-year-
> old school loan.

He was not taken to prison, he was arrested. These are wildly different
actions. Nowhere in the article do the strings "prison", "jail", "gaol",
"cell", "penitentiary" or any other synonym for prison appear.

There is plenty of discussion elsewhere in the HN comments on what may have
led to this arrest.

~~~
mywittyname
A more thorough article: [http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-
marshals-arrest...](http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/u-s-marshals-
arresting-people-not-paying-student-loans-article-1.2533153)

> Aker said he was put in the back of a truck and placed in a cell at the
> federal building in downtown Houston.

> Aker told The News that he was ordered to pay $5,700 for the loan, including
> interest. However, Aker was also ordered to pay for the cost of the morning
> arrest — nearly $1,300.

> If he didn't pay that amount by March 1, he said, he was told he would be
> arrested again.

Wonder what will happen when he's arrested again when he can't come up with
$7000 in two weeks.

~~~
greggyb
So, a courthouse cell is a very different thing than being imprisoned. It's
reasonable to assume that someone brought to court against their will would
not be so willing to stay there.

I have made no statement about the propriety of the actions described in
either article, merely observed that this is not a case of sending someone to
prison over a debt.

------
esbranson
Per peter303[1] and Google, a Judgment Debtor Examination in federal court is
pursuant to Rule 69 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and local rules
authorizing magistrates (non-judge judges) to conduct examinations of judgment
debtors.

Also see JUDGMENT CREDITOR: MOTION TO COMPEL- SAMPLE OF AUTHORITIES[2] from
the US DOJ:

In United States v. Teeple, 286 F.3d 1047 (8th Cir. 2002), the IRS served a
summons on an individual taxpayer, because he had failed to file tax returns.
When the taxpayer failed to comply with the summons, the United States filed
suit to enforce. The district court ordered the summons enforced over the
taxpayer's Fifth Amendment objection under the act of production doctrine. The
taxpayer was held in contempt for not complying with the enforcement order and
was incarcerated.

[1] [http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-new-bill-
collecto...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/the-new-bill-collector-
tactic-jail-time.html) [2]
[http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/tax/legacy/2006/0...](http://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/tax/legacy/2006/03/02/exh13.pdf)

------
erbo
And meanwhile, the banks commit outright fraud and are rewarded with bailouts.

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jkot
Why is that so shocking? About 15% of prisoners are there for debt.

~~~
JBReefer
Calling nonpayment of fines "debt" is disingenuous to the point of propaganda.

~~~
50CNT
Doesn't the US have an issue with certain edge cases of fines becoming
recursive without terminating?

[http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/sentenced-
debt...](http://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-plain-sight/sentenced-debt-some-
tossed-prison-over-unpaid-fines-v18380470)

Whilst this case may not be like that, it's still quite worrisome that these
kinds of things happen to people.

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jeffrogers
I'm guessing the cost of collections -- the attorneys, the marshals, etc --
far exceded $1500.

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mtimjones
When you take out a loan, you should pay it back. But I'm a conservative, so
my views differ from most liberals.

~~~
pc86
I'm a conservative and I'd adamantly disagree that "most liberals" don't think
you should pay back loans. But I could be wrong - it's totally possible that
most liberals buy cars in cash, only rent instead of purchasing property, etc.
That's totally plausible.

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thrill
Invoking the blunt hammer of armed enforcers is an unnecessary act. Any of the
debtor's current and future wages can just as easily be garnished with the
same stroke of a pen.

