State Examines Arrests For Unpaid Court Fines and Fees

Nonprofit attorney Ed Wunch suspected that Caddo County was regularly jailing people over unpaid court fines and fees, but needed to prove it. 

On a Friday afternoon in March, he drove from Oklahoma City to Anadarko to scour records at the county jail. From a public access computer, he printed out more than 140 bookings tied solely to cost arrest warrants from November 2023 through March 2026. 

The average time in custody was 33 hours, though a handful of people were jailed for more than 72 hours. One woman spent 95 hours in custody after being booked on a cost arrest warrant the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day in January 2025. 

“There are so many things I’m finding in these records that are just pretty horrendous, to think that this is theoretically the justice system,” Wunch said, adding that the average payment within five days of a booking was about $24. 

Oklahoma’s district courts rely heavily on collections to cover basic operations, making blanket fine and fee waivers impractical, advocates and court officials said. But without adequate protections, advocates argue poor defendants can be prematurely presumed able to pay and face jail time when they fall behind.

Researchers have found that even short jail stays for unpaid court costs can have significant consequences, including job loss. Without steady income, making payments becomes even more difficult. 

Critics of jailing people over court debt also cite the taxpayer cost of holding someone in jail. In April 2024, Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai set the average cost of a jail stay at $66.49 per day. 

In November 2016, during a traffic stop, Cleveland County sheriff’s deputies arrested Kendallia Killman over unpaid court fines and fees. She said she was detained for only a few hours before being released on a personal recognizance bond, but had extra fees tacked on after the encounter.

“There was a time when I didn’t leave my home for the fear of going to jail,” said Killman, a plaintiff in the Wilkins v. Aberdeen Enterprizes II, Inc. case, which alleges that dozens of Oklahoma sheriffs and a collections agency operated an illegal debt collection scheme. “Because if I go to jail, there’s nobody to take care of my kids.”

In light of that lawsuit, Oklahoma lawmakers implemented new safeguards in 2023. House Bill 2259 had three main objectives: Make court debt collection more efficient, ensure due process for defendants and prevent unnecessary arrests and jail time on cost-related warrants. The law took effect Nov. 1, 2023. 

Almost three years later, a lack of data has made it difficult for lawmakers to evaluate how counties have implemented the changes. At the Legislature’s request, a committee of county officials, judges and reform advocates has begun compiling comprehensive data, including jail bookings tied solely to cost arrest warrants.

Some of Oklahoma’s largest counties have moved away from jailing people over court costs. Tulsa County carried out just two cost arrest warrants during fiscal year 2026, according to preliminary data from the Administrative Office of the Courts. 

Tulsa County Court Clerk Second Deputy Randy Proffitt said judicial discretion explains the shift. If a defendant remains unresponsive to multiple outreach efforts, a judge may forward their debt to a collections agency rather than issue an arrest warrant, court records show. 

“I don’t think anybody, at least in Tulsa County, wants to see someone go to jail for nonpayment,” Proffitt said. 

Wunch said the law change has helped many counties reduce their reliance on jail time to recover court debt. The measure authorized courts to issue less severe cite-and-release warrants that prevent police from taking someone to jail and instead direct the defendant to contact the county clerk’s office within 10 days to set up a payment plan. Oklahoma County, which stopped jailing people over cost arrest warrants in 2019, frequently uses that approach. 

Caddo County has continued to rely on cost arrest warrants, the records show. In 15 cases, the court clerk issued a cost or willfulness hearing summons less than 14 days before a hearing date, short of a two-week notice threshold outlined in state law. Failing to appear at a cost hearing can lead to an arrest warrant. 

Wunch said such a quick turnaround can make compliance difficult for someone who has changed addresses or has transportation problems. 

“In counties like Caddo, and I’m sure there are others, there are just policies that seem to say, ‘how can we comply with the letter of the law but not the spirit?’” he said.

Caddo County Special Judge David Stephens, who oversees the county’s cost docket, did not respond to a request for comment. 

Judicial attitudes toward court fines and fees vary widely, Oklahoma County District Judge Nikki Kirkpatrick said during a Sept. 25 Cost Administration Implementation Committee meeting. 

“We’ve got some disparate treating of costs in different counties,” Kirkpatrick said. “You’re going to have some judges that are mathematically minded and will be able to go, yes [to waiving or reducing costs]. Others, you’re just going to have no sympathy from them at all.” 

In a report on court funding issued last week, Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform Policy Counsel Michael Olson wrote that rural counties tend to assess more fines and fees than their urban counterparts.

“The incentive is structural, not personal,” Olson wrote. “Counties with weaker tax bases lean harder on criminal legal system revenue, and that dependency tracks directly with more warrants, more enforcement and more incarceration.”

Data Collection Underway

Lauren Krisai entered 2026 hoping to abolish cost arrests in Oklahoma. 

Krisai, executive director of the Justice Action Network, found a partner in Rep. Mike Osburn, R-Edmond. In January, Osburn introduced a proposal to create a civil enforcement system to recover outstanding court fines and fees. 

Nonprofit attorney Ed Wunch poses for a photo outside of the Oklahoma Supreme Court building on Sept. 25, 2026. (Keaton Ross/Oklahoma Watch)

The measure passed unanimously in committee, before pushback emerged ahead of a vote on the House floor. Law enforcement groups expressed doubt that cost arrests were happening, noting that some defendants might have an outstanding cost arrest warrant but were booked on a more serious offense. County officials were uncertain whether a garnishment system was feasible. 

“One of the points was, ‘Oh, this never happens in Oklahoma,’” Krisai said. “We don’t do this, we don’t arrest people. We just need the threat of arrest to get people to pay. And we were like, ‘First of all, that’s illegal. And second of all, we were talking to folks on the ground who say this is happening.’” 

Reform advocates and law enforcement struck a compromise. House Bill 3321, signed into law by Gov. Kevin Stitt in May, directs the Cost Administration Implementation Committee to collect data on the number of people arrested solely on cost arrest warrants and their length of detention, among other information. A preliminary report to the attorney general’s office and lawmakers is due Dec. 31, with a Nov. 15, 2027 deadline for a more comprehensive annual report. 

Lawmakers also approved a companion measure to expedite the cost hearing process. House Bill 4237, which takes effect Nov. 1, will allow defendants to request a cost hearing at the time of plea or sentencing. 

At the Sept. 25 meeting, committee chair Timothy Tardibono said the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation was finalizing software updates that will allow sheriff’s offices to accurately report cost arrest bookings to the state. The agency assured committee members at a July meeting that the request was feasible but that jailers would need training to ensure accurate data. 

Tardibono said the committee’s initial report will likely only include a month or two of cost arrest booking data, which may not be enough to draw broad conclusions. 

“We don’t know when we’re going to start getting it,” he said during the meeting. “It may not be until later in October or November. I’m worried that it’s going to be limited.” 

Osburn, who did not seek reelection and will leave office in November, said he’s confident the Legislature will take action if the committee’s report identifies frequent arrests over court fines and fees.

“It seems counterintuitive to me to arrest somebody for not paying court costs,” Osburn said. “If they are arrested and they’re in jail, they’re definitely not working, so you’re definitely not getting paid. It’s not that we don’t need some kind of remedy for unpaid court costs and fees, but that just doesn’t seem like what the remedy should be.”

Wunch said the committee’s work could have a proactive benefit, preventing the state from becoming entangled in new lawsuits. 

“This issue in Caddo County showed us there’s a problem at least somewhere,” he said. “Let’s make sure there aren’t problems anywhere else, and if there are, then we know about them and can fix them.” 

Along with the data collection effort, committee members have weighed solutions to make paying off court costs more convenient. 

Several members said technical upgrades, including creating a text message reminder system or offering autodraft payments, could help increase compliance. While most defendants can make electronic payments via the OSCN website, there’s no option to schedule monthly payments.

“Being able to create an autodraft system, I think that would be tremendously helpful, because people just forget,” Kirkpatrick said. “When you have someone who has lived in 24 places in 12 months, they’re not looking at the calendar. They’re in survival mode.”

Keaton Ross covers democracy and criminal justice for Oklahoma Watch. Contact him at (405) 831-9753 or Kross@Oklahomawatch.org. Follow him on Twitter at @_KeatonRoss.

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