Grand Theft Auto in Wilmington, Delaware

How One City Cashes in on a Towing and Impound Racket

In Wilmington, Delaware, any car with more than $200 in outstanding fines can be towed by private towing companies. Vehicle owners have no way to contest the tickets or seizure without first paying the city everything it demands in parking tickets, fines, fees, and penalties. If they can’t afford to pay in 30 days, the companies get to scrap their cars and keep their full value, returning nothing to the property owners and not even crediting part of the value of the car to the underlying fines. In exchange, the city gets a free impound program; property owners lose everything. In today’s episode, we will talk about all the ways that this system violates constitutional rights—and what two residents are doing to fight it.

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January 05, 2022

When Can Your Past Bar You From a Job—And When Should It?

In Virginia, any one of 176 so-called barrier crimes can disqualify a person from work in certain occupations for life—no matter how old the conviction, how unrelated it is to the work the person desires to do, or how little it reflects the person’s fitness today. These laws kept IJ client Rudy Carey from fulfilling work as a substance abuse counselor for people he is uniquely fit to help. In today’s show, we talk about what happened to Rudy and how he is fighting against collateral consequences laws that are irrational and unjust.

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September 28, 2021

IJ at 30: IJ President Scott Bullock on the Cases and Clients that Changed IJ and the Law (A Deep Dive Best Of)

IJ President Scott Bullock on the Cases and Clients that Changed IJ and the Law (A Deep Dive Best Of)

Before he was IJ’s president, Scott Bullock spent 25 years as an IJ attorney. In this episode, he recounts his years in the trenches as […]

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