Key Points: 

• Courts vacate millions in debt from juveniles’ records

• Court’s reliance on AI automation maximized impact 

• Advocates say weight lifted from juveniles, families

Courts across Arizona have wiped nearly $40 million in outstanding fees from juveniles’ records to comply with a new state law. Now, proponents of the measure and the state judicial system are celebrating the move as a step in the right direction to protect juveniles, and their families, from burdensome criminal fines.

“On so many levels (we’re) grateful for the courts for embracing it, grateful for the decision to automatically vacate, grateful that so many families are going to have this relief,” Rebecca Gau, executive director of Stand for Children, said. “It allows kids to get a fresh start with college loans and apartments, all the things that were hard from having this collection on their record.” 

Before the passage of Senate Bill 1197, sponsored by Sen. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, and Rep. Alma Hernandez, D-Tucson, the courts could order juvenile defendants to cover charges for probation, attorney services, foster care, treatment, educational or community programs, juvenile supervision, health care, food, clothing and shelter while in custody. 

Chris Phillis, a public defender in Pinal County, said the biggest fee was typically the probation assessment fee, which was $30 a month for at least 12 months, with an assortment of small fees levied on the side. 

“For most people, I’m going to say it was probably about $1,200 when everything was said and done,” Phillis said. “Which may not seem like an astronomical amount, but when you aren’t covering all your monthly bills to begin with, it’s an impossibility.” 

She noted the debt impacts credit score, which could go on to complicate renting an apartment or buying a car down the line. And, with a debt still on the books, many juveniles would be unable to get their criminal record destroyed.

So far, the Administrative Office of the Court reported vacating $39.7 million in eligible unpaid monetary obligations against 110,784 juveniles, parents and guardians.

“It has made a difference for my families,” Phillis said. “For some of my kids, it has helped them really be able to destroy their record and move on without those fees weighing over their head.” 

SB1197 slashed a long list of monetary sanctions for young offenders, though it left intact victim restitution fees, and directed the courts to set up systems for vacating unpaid monetary obligations and calling off collection enforcement. 

The bill authorized the court to automatically vacate debts, as well as set up an opt-in petition process and make an effort to notify eligible individuals.

“As this bill was moving through, we realized what a large bill this was going to be, and all the impact that it was going to have,” Laura Ritenour, a project lead at the Administrative Office of the Courts, said. 

The work to eliminate the fees began with an implementation group, a joining of administrative, juvenile justice, court operations, automation, governmental affairs and legal specialists. 

The court then established a process for petitioning to vacate the fees and explored the use of automation. And with IT support, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Robert Brutinel set off a cascade of administrative orders, empowering Superior Court judges and local jurisdictional courts to take on either a manual or automated process, with specifications on which cases and fees would be eligible in the case management systems. 

Every county except Pima County opted for the automated process. 

“Somebody pushed a button, and overnight, at the end of the process, it gave a final report,” Ritenour said. 

The report generated a long list of cases which were then reviewed a second time to ensure no case was improperly flagged. The courts are now in the process of notifying county recorders and monitoring compliance. 

The final report to the Legislature showed 110,689 cases vacated via the court’s own motion and 95 granted via the petition process. The two largest counties showed the lion’s share, with Maricopa County vacating about $12.3 million in fees across 63,495 cases, and Pima County vacating $8.9 million in fees across 16,194 cases. 

Stand for Children Arizona helped in getting the word out initially about the petition process, but said the automated piece of the project was key to maximum impact. 

“Imagine if 110,000 people had to submit the petition,” Gau said. “No matter how hard we communicated, we never could have reached them all.” 

Gau noted that the success of the automatic process could pave the way for reforms in the future. 

“We’re exploring the potential of doing something similar with those kinds of fees in adult work,” Gau said. “I hope now that we know that you can go back and vacate them, I’m wondering if that will make that whole discussion a lot easier, because a lot of the struggles we went through working with the courts on the bill was related to implementation.” 

Ritenour echoed the same. 

“At first, people were a little hesitant, going, well, can we do this? But as we talked about it, and there was a lot of testing that went into it, then people started believing, yes, this is something that we can do.” Ritenour said. “I think this lets us know that we can do this work, and we can maybe even improve on some of the things that we’ve done, and we can work on something like this again.”