Low-income Iowans cannot be billed for court costs when charges are dismissed, Iowa Supreme Court rules

DES MOINES — State courts in Iowa cannot bill low-income Iowans for the cost of their court-appointed defense attorney when criminal charges against the person have been dismissed, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in a decision released Friday.

The ruling stems from a case in which Iowa man Ronald Pagliai faced four criminal charges: three for shoplifting from Kohl's, Hy-Vee and Price Chopper, and another for resisting arrest. The cases were combined in 2024 and Pagliai pleaded guilty to the Hy-Vee and Kohl's charges. A district court eventually dismissed the resisting arrest and Price Chopper charges.

Pagliai was sentenced to serve 41 days and was ordered by the court to pay victim restitution and the full cost of the court-appointed defense fees for all charges since he agreed to do so as part of his plea agreement.

Oral arguments for the case were held in October, where the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, the Fines and Fees Justice Center and Public Justice used Pagliai’s case to challenge how the state collects defense fees in dismissed cases and asked the court to reverse his defense fees for the two dismissed charges. They argued that billing defendants for court fees when their cases are dismissed violated state law and the Iowa Constitution.

The court sided with Pagliai 5-2, ruling that Iowa law does not allow defendants with dismissed cases to be charged for their legal fees. However, the judges did not rule on the constitutionality of the practice.

“The state concedes that no statute authorizes the district court to assess costs in dismissed criminal cases. We agree with the concession,” Justice Christopher McDonald wrote in the court’s ruling.

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Justices Edward Mansfield, Dana Oxley and David May joined McDonald, while Justice Matthew McDermott filed a concurring opinion. Justice Thomas Waterman wrote a dissenting opinion joined by Chief Justice Susan Christensen.

The court also reversed Pagliai’s plea agreement, sending it back to the district court.

ACLU of Iowa cooperating attorney Alex Kornya said the process poses an issue for many low-income Iowans with dismissed charges, like Pagliai, who cannot afford an attorney. He said this further saddles them with debt and makes it more difficult for them to move forward past their legal challenges.

“We are gratified that the court today recognized that agreements to pay this kind of debt in criminal cases violate Iowa law and are entered without authority,” Kornya said during a press call Friday. “We're hopeful that this decision will prevent these kinds of agreements from being made in the future, since they tie people down to what is often a lifetime of unpayable debt with heavy consequences.”

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The ACLU of Iowa in October highlighted an investigation by The Marshall Project, which shows Iowa imposes some of the highest court-appointed defense fees in the country. Kornya said that since many Iowans who owe these fees are typically low-income, the collection rate for court-appointed defense in dismissed cases is extremely low.

In 2015, the collection rate was 3.2 percent, compared to the 2.1 percent collection rate in 2021, the ACLU of Iowa stated in its brief to the court.

Kornya added that the ruling does not clarify how other Iowans who currently have court fees from dismissed charges can have theirs waived.

This is the second time the issue of court-appointed defense fees in dismissed cases has come before the Iowa Supreme Court. In 2020, Lori Mathes was charged with felony drug possession and wanted to fight the charge, but couldn’t afford her own lawyer. She ended up applying for a court-appointed lawyer and agreed to pay all legal defense costs. When a judge dropped the charges two years later, Mathes was told the defense costs would cost $500, but that ended up being $3,000.

The Iowa Supreme Court ruled 3-3 in that case, with Justice Matthew McDermott recusing himself. This allowed the court-appointed defense charges to remain in place, but they were later struck after further litigation.