Your opinion, please, regarding this hypothetical:

Defendant in TDCJ has website with paypal or jpay button so that supporters can send him cash, commissary, whatever. Yet, he is represented by appointed counsel, both at trial and on appeal. Anybody have a problem with this besides the victims? I see this more and more and it just doesn't seem right.

[This message was edited by KSchaefer on 07-31-08 at .]

I don't pretend to know all the statutes or rules involved, but it sure doesn't pass the smell test. If the inmate was local, the court could call him in and inquire about his finances (although you'd have to subpoena the paypal records to get the real answer - and that might be hard to do procedurally with no pending case at the local level). If he's off in the pen somewhere, the judge would likely start wondering about the costs to the county for transporting him both ways and feeding him while he's local, plus the costs of the hearing, etc. compared with the savings that you might get. The more I think about it, it sounds like a legislature issue.....and you know those guys move at the speed of light.

Could the money be seized under 59.01(7) as "proceeds"? What does the website say that provides the link to paypal?

I don't know if this would fly, but if he's getting money from an internet site because he's a convicted felon, I'd think you might be able to argue it's "proceeds".

Has the AG done an opinion on this?

Sure looks like it fits the definition of proceeds as "income" a person "receives from" "electronic media format, including an Internet website." I guess I need to place a call in to the civil folks.

I believe that you can seek an order from the trial judge that takes a percentage of the commissary account to cover court costs including court appointed attorney fees, so long as those costs are stated in the judgment.

Under what statutory provision can we get commissary accounts?

And yes, it looks like the AG did an opinion regarding sale of inmate artwork, which is theoretically forfeitable. None of this really covers the paypal accounts or the jpay accounts though. These guys have access to lots of $ through the internet which can be dangerous, as they can effect the free world goings-on.

[This message was edited by KSchaefer on 07-31-08 at .]

The statutory authorization for deducting court costs from an inmate commissary account is Government Code sec. 501.014(e)(4). As to how his little PayPal arrangement would be impacted by that, I don't know, but would guess that the money might have to go into the commissary account first to be subject to the deduction.

Great. Thanks!