Nevada hearing spotlights bill to eliminate fees for indigent defendants

Senate Bill 120, presented at an Assembly Judiciary Committee hearing, would eliminate certain court fees assessed on indigent defendants and require greater consistency in how courts impose and collect monetary penalties.

Proponents told the committee that fee practices vary widely across Nevada courts and that the charges fall disproportionately on people who cannot afford them. "Justice should not be contingent on wealth," said Soraya Bonner, who introduced the bill on behalf of Senator Shaibel. Nick Shepack, Nevada state director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center, told the committee a national study with Duke Law found fines and fees affect one in three Americans and can cause housing and food hardship.

Supporters said the bill targets fees charged only to the most indigent defendants, including payment-plan fees and public-defender (indigent defense) fees. Shepack told the committee that among 40 municipal and justice courts surveyed, four used sliding payment-plan fees, 19 charged no payment-plan fee, and some courts charged up to $50–$100 to set up a plan. He also said collection rates for public-defender fees are low: seven of 11 courts and counties that charge such fees reported collecting less than $10,000 in 2023, with most collecting under $5,000.

Shepack detailed historical context: Gideon v. Wainwright established the right to counsel in 1963, and Nevada lawmakers later permitted charging indigent-defense fees by way of Assembly Bill 70 (1975). He said that standards and indigency testing introduced since then have reduced the rationale for charging these fees and that inconsistent local practices and judge-level variation — with some judges assessing fees in a majority of cases and others rarely doing so — produce unfair outcomes. "This inconsistency breeds unfairness in our system," Shepack said.

Tia Smith, a policy attorney with ACLU of Nevada, spoke in support. No callers testified from the public record in opposition or neutral at the time the committee opened public testimony on SB120. The hearing record shows proponents asked the committee to consider the bill as a means to prevent fines from becoming long-term debts that lead to late fees, collections and, in some cases, incarceration.

The committee closed the hearing on SB120 without a recorded committee vote and immediately opened a separate hearing on SB141 (detention facility policies for transgender and gender-nonconforming people). No formal action on SB120 was recorded in the transcript provided.

Background and context: proponents asked the committee to consider the state-level fiscal and administrative effects of low collection rates and inconsistencies in reporting to the Department of Indigent Defense Services (DIDS). Shepack told the committee that some reporting practices risk double-counting collections and complicate state contributions under the counties' maximum contribution formula.

The bill remains at the hearing stage; no recommendation or floor action was recorded during this session.