Nonetheless, advocates across the country continue to expose judges who unlawfully deprive defendants of lawyers or throw people in jail simply because they are too poor to pay small amounts of money.
Is it possible to figure out, from court proceedings, when such a thing happens? I'm wondering if a "search engine" could be built, that trawls PACER reports and digs up cases where poor people are being sent to jail for small amounts of money. I'd be willing to chip in a little bit of money into a Kiva-style pool, from which the poor can tap the money and repay it later.