Longtime Reading District Judge Thomas H. Xavios said multiple factors caused him to rank near the top among all judges in the state for cases in which offenders were sent to jail for not having money.
According to a Reading Eagle analysis of state data, only two other district judges among the approximately 500 others across Pennsylvania had more docketed cases in which low-level offenders went to jail for failure to post collateral. The judge with the largest figure was York County’s James H. Morgan, with 575.
Offenders in Xavios’ court were sent to jail in 377 cases during the two years ended Dec. 31.
From Berks, the late William N. Hall Jr. had 378 cases. District Judge Phyllis J. Kowalski had 338. District Judge Dean R. Patton had 334.
Each of their totals individually surpassed the combined total of no-collateral jailing cases for all district judges in 25 Pennsylvania counties, including the nearby, heavily populated Lehigh, Montgomery and Bucks counties.
Collateral is similar to bail imposed in more serious cases.
Xavios cited his court’s handling of massive number of parking tickets and his many stints in night court as drivers of his large number of no-collateral cases.
For years, Xavios said, his court handled all cases of parking violations in Reading. At his busiest, he said, he was handling more than 20,000 summary cases a year.
Asked whether people should be sent to jail for being unable to pay, Xavios said: “It depends on the reason, and how many courts are involved. Is it willful neglect? Do they have the ability to pay?”
Attempts on Monday to reach Morgan, the York County district judge, were unsuccessful.
Patton said there are a multitude of factors that go into committing a person to jail for failure to post collateral.
Referring to the hundreds of judges in Pennsylvania that had only a handful of such cases — or even no such cases in the last two years, Patton said he could not speak to their situations.
His own court, though, is just north of the Reading-Muhlenberg line, and Patton said that is a factor.
“Reading; we have such a transient thing here,” he said.
Many offenders have had many different addresses, he said, and many repeatedly do not show up for district court hearings.
When they do show up, Patton said, he tries to do everything he can to avoid committing them to jail.
“I don’t want to put people in jail. I tell them that,” he said. “But I can’t not put them in jail when they don’t show up.”
Some of the offenders, he said, “just don’t bother to help themselves.”
A frequent occurrence in summary cases in district courts is a payment determination hearing in which the judge weighs evidence to figure out a payment plan for the offender.
Patton estimated only 25 percent of the people scheduled for such hearings in his court actually show up.
Reading District Judge Alvin B. Robinson, who had 149 cases during the last two years in which an offender was jailed for lack of collateral, said judges have a system.
“We have a set of rules that we go by, and they are given the opportunity to give collateral,” Robinson said.
The Eagle obtained its data from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts.
The newspaper reported that of the 11,513 docketed cases during 2017-18 in which low-level offenders were jailed for not posting collateral, 3,565, or nearly 31 percent, occurred in Berks.
The newspaper reported that many other counties rarely commit people to jail for lacking collateral or have moved away from the practice.
Previously, the newspaper reported that the five district courts in Reading generated more paid work for constables than courts in any other municipality in Pennsylvania.
Constables are paid to serve arrest warrants generated in district courts and to take those offenders to jail, among other things.
The latest analysis of AOPC data by the newspaper showed that 12 district courts in Berks County – including all five located in Reading – were among the top 25 in the state for no-collateral jailings.
Judges and jailings
State data show that during the last two years, Berks County had many district judges who ranked near the top of a list of their peers in cases in which offenders were jailed for not posting collateral. Here are the 88 judges with the largest 2017-18 totals, followed by all other judges in Berks with any such cases. There are about 500 district judges statewide, excluding Philadelphia:
NOTE: Philadelphia operates its own municipal court system and is not part of the statewide MDJS data system.
SOURCE: Reading Eagle analysis of Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts data
