Hacker News Reader

It's a distinction without a difference if the court is ordering you to pay money that don't have and can't get.

The US doesn't have debtor's prison per se. Only certain kinds of obligations, which are already associated with "jailable" offenses can result in something that looks a lot like debtor's prison. In some cases not being able to pay a debt really should carry a jail sentence, for example in case of clearly fraudulent behavior.

John Oliver talks about a particular kind of "debtor's jail" in a recent episode of "Last Week Tonight". It seems though that appeal courts don't look favorably on such jail terms.

Which is for non-payment of debt, which is debtors prison.