by David Kim

The Supreme Court of California granted review to resolve a split among the Courts of Appeal concerning court-ordered financial obligations imposed at criminal sentencing. The Court held that a challenge to the amount of a punitive criminal fine should be reviewed in the first instance under the Excessive Fines Clauses of the United States and California Constitutions, not under due process principles requiring an ability-to-pay hearing before imposition. The Court rejected the approach of People v. Dueñas, 30 Cal. App. 5th 1157 (2019), which had required an ability-to-pay hearing before imposing punitive fines, and it disapproved Dueñas and its progeny to the extent inconsistent with its holding.

Additionally, the Court held that the imposition of certain nonpunitive ancillary costs raises distinct equal protection concerns. Specifically, equal protection principles require a court, upon request, to consider a defendant’s ability to pay before imposing a court operations assessment under Penal Code § 1465.8, subdivision (a)(1), or a court facilities assessment under Government Code § 70373, subdivision (a)(1). The Court reasoned that where the Legislature has provided fee waivers to indigent civil litigants for costs serving identical purposes, denying indigent criminal defendants the same opportunity lacks a rational basis under James v. Strange, 407 U.S. 128 (1972). While the Court’s holding resolved the disputed orders in this case, it emphasized: “Although our holding resolves the orders in this particular case, we do not intend to foreclose other challenges based on the facts of a given case.” The Court also urged the Legislature to revisit the broader issues surrounding court-ordered ancillary payments in criminal cases and address them comprehensively.

Background

Jason Hernandez was a leader in the Varrio Fallbrook Locos gang and acknowledged on appeal he was also a member of the Mexican Mafia. In December 2013, Hernandez and codefendant Christi Kopp met with U.P., an affiliate of both gangs, to discuss a plan to sell methamphetamine. A.C. was also present. When Hernandez accused A.C. of owing money to the gang, she denied it and left. Hernandez and another gang associate followed and assaulted her, stabbing her in the head and neck. Hernandez also punched and kicked her, breaking several of her facial bones. Afterwards, Hernandez used intermediaries, including Kopp, to attempt to persuade A.C. not to testify and to arrange for the murder of U.P.

Hernandez was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon and by force likely to produce great bodily injury, conspiracy to commit murder, and conspiracy to dissuade a witness, along with other crimes and enhancements. The court imposed a sentence of 50 years to life plus 31 years.

At sentencing, Hernandez’s counsel asked the trial court to impose a minimum restitution fine and stay any additional payment orders due to his inability to pay. The court denied the request, stating its understanding that a determination of inability to pay occurs not at sentencing but at a later date when the fine may be imposed and that Hernandez might earn funds while incarcerated. The court imposed various fines and ancillary costs, including: a $50 criminal laboratory analysis fee under Health and Safety Code § 11372.5, subdivision (a); a $150 drug program fee under Health and Safety Code § 11372.7, subdivision (a); penalty assessments and surcharges totaling $620 attached to those fees; a $10,000 restitution fine under Penal Code § 1202.4, subdivision (b)(1); a stayed $10,000 parole revocation fine under Penal Code § 1202.45; a $154 booking fee; a $120 court operations assessment; and a $90 court facilities assessment.

On appeal, Hernandez challenged the monetary orders because the court did not first find he had the ability to pay. The Court of Appeal held the trial court should have considered whether Hernandez had the ability to pay before imposing ancillary costs but rejected his claim that such a finding was required for fines. It clarified that a defendant could challenge the fines under the excessive fines clauses. The matter was remanded, and the Supreme Court granted Hernandez’s petition for review.

Analysis

Statutory Framework
and Distinctions Among
Court-Ordered Payments

The Court began its analysis by distinguishing among the various types of payments commonly imposed at sentencing, which it categorized into three broad types: fines, ancillary costs, and victim restitution. Criminal fines “are penalties inflicted by the sovereign for the commission of offenses,” according to the Court. Southern Union Co. v. United States, 567 U.S. 343 (2012). Both the federal and state Constitutions prohibit excessive fines. U.S. Const. amend. VIII; Cal. Const., art. I, § 17.

Unlike punitive fines, ancillary costs serve an entirely different function. The Court explained that these charges operate as revenue-generating tools designed to offset government expenses or support particular programs rather than to penalize criminal conduct. See People v. Ruiz, 417 P.3d 191 (Cal. 2018). Importantly, the Court made clear that statutory terminology carries no controlling weight in this analysis – a charge denominated a “fee” or “assessment” may nonetheless function as punishment, and vice versa. This classification determines which constitutional doctrine governs a challenge: punitive fines implicate the Excessive Fines Clauses, while nonpunitive assessments raise equal protection concerns.

Applying that framework, the Court determined that the lab fee and drug program fee, despite their statutory labels, operate as punishment because the Legislature designed them to serve that purpose. The court operations and court facilities assessments, however, fall into a different category and do not carry punitive consequences, according to the Court.

The Court also clarified which monetary obligations remained genuinely contested. Several statutory provisions already mandate or permit inquiry into a defendant’s financial capacity. For example, the drug program fee may be ordered only after the sentencing court determines the defendant can satisfy it, and the $465 in related penalty assessments attached to that fee would rise or fall with that determination. Similarly, when setting a restitution fine above the statutory floor of $300, the court may weigh any pertinent consideration, including financial hardship, and the parole revocation fine must be fixed at the identical amount, the Court explained.

Punitive Fines and the
Excessive Fines Clauses

Hernandez argued that due process and equal protection bar any monetary sanction absent an advance finding of financial capacity. The Court rejected this unified approach, explaining that fines and ancillary costs are based on distinct rationales and trigger distinct constitutional safeguards. Determining what conduct warrants punishment, and how severely, lies squarely within legislative authority. People v. Turnage, 281 P.3d 464 (Cal. 2012); People v. Wilkinson, 94 P.3d 551 (Cal. 2004).

Hernandez invoked a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions going back to Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12 (1956). The Court acknowledged this precedent but determined that it is distinguishable. Griffin invalidated a requirement that defendants purchase trial transcripts before pursuing an appeal, reasoning that financial barriers could not obstruct review of potentially unfair convictions. Later decisions extended Griffin to other procedural contexts where indigency threatened meaningful access to judicial remedies.

A separate doctrinal strand addressed incarceration triggered by unpaid fines. Williams v. Illinois, 399 U.S. 235 (1970), struck down a scheme that kept indigent defendants behind bars beyond their maximum sentences to satisfy outstanding financial obligations. Tate v. Short, 401 U.S. 395 (1971), reached an analogous result where the only authorized penalty was a fine. The state could not jail a defendant simply because poverty prevented payment. And in Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660 (1983), the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited revoking probation based on nonpayment without first exploring why the defendant had defaulted.

Importantly, however, neither Williams nor Bearden prohibited courts from imposing fines at the outset. The Court stated that Bearden expressly recognized the state’s legitimate interest in punishing lawbreakers regardless of wealth, observing that poverty confers no immunity from sanction. The Court explained that those precedents targeted enforcement mechanisms that effectively converted financial inability into additional incarceration; they did not mandate pre-imposition ability-to-pay hearings.

The Court concluded that Hernandez’s proposed framework would stretch this jurisprudence to a context it was never designed to reach: the original sentencing decision, long before any enforcement consequences arise. The Court declined that extension.

The Court then addressed Dueñas directly and concluded that its analysis was flawed. Dueñas had drawn support from Adams v. Murakami, 813 P.2d 1348 (Cal. 1991), which recognized that a defendant’s financial circumstances bear on punitive damages awards. But Adams arose in civil litigation, where a jury individually determines damages to achieve deterrence. In contrast, criminal fines embody a legislative judgment about proportionate punishment that applies uniformly. The Court expressly disapproved Dueñas along with People v. Castellano, 33 Cal. App. 5th 485 (2019); People v. Belloso, 42 Cal. App. 5th 647 (2019); and People v. Cowan, 47 Cal. App. 5th 32 (2020), to the extent those decisions conflict with the current ruling.

Rather than due process, the Court identified the Excessive Fines Clauses as the appropriate mechanism for challenging punitive fines. Both the federal and California Constitutions forbid disproportionate financial penalties, and the governing inquiry expressly incorporates ability to pay. Under United States v. Bajakajian, 524 U.S. 321 (1998), proportionality serves as the central benchmark. Any monetary fine must correspond to the seriousness of the underlying offense. Because legislatures hold primary responsibility for calibrating punishment, Bajakajian adopted a deferential gross-disproportionality standard based on Eighth Amendment cruel-and-unusual-punishment jurisprudence, the Court explained.

Equal Protection and
Ancillary Costs

Turning to the nonpunitive assessments, the Court held that their imposition without regard to financial capacity implicates equal protection guarantees. Hernandez contended that indigent criminal defendants receive inferior treatment compared to indigent civil litigants, who may obtain waivers of comparable court-funding charges.

Equal protection doctrine demands that government provide adequate justification when it treats groups differently. People v. Chatman, 410 P.3d 9 (Cal. 2018). Where neither a suspect classification nor a fundamental right is at stake, a challenged distinction survives if rationally connected to a legitimate governmental objective. People v. Hardin, 543 P.3d 960 (Cal. 2024). Hardin further explained that when a statute expressly creates classifications, courts need not undertake a preliminary inquiry into whether the affected groups are similarly situated; the sole question is whether the differential treatment withstands the applicable level of scrutiny. The burden falls on the party attacking the statute to demonstrate it is not adequately justified.

Turning to the present case, the Court noted that the statutory framework facially distinguishes criminal defendants from civil litigants. Courts must order the operations and facilities assessments upon every criminal conviction other than parking violations. Civil litigants, however, enjoy access to a comprehensive waiver regime. The Legislature has declared that court charges should not obstruct access for those lacking financial means, and an initial fee waiver “shall be granted” to individuals receiving specified public assistance, earning no more than twice the federal poverty threshold, or otherwise unable to pay without sacrificing basic necessities.

Tracing the enactment history, the Court determined that legislators created both the civil and criminal funding mechanisms simultaneously, intended them to accomplish identical goals, and directed the proceeds into the same account but extended waiver eligibility exclusively to civil parties. Both Hernandez and the Attorney General argued this disparity fails rational-basis review, and the Court agreed.

The Court found James controlling. James examined a Kansas law permitting the state to recoup defense costs from indigent defendants while stripping away the protective exemptions available to other civil judgment debtors. The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the statute, reasoning that equal protection requires some rational basis for singling out a class for disfavored treatment, a requirement Kansas failed to satisfy.

The Court reasoned that California’s scheme suffers from an identical defect. Having determined that both criminal defendants and civil litigants should contribute to court funding at comparable rates for comparable purposes, the Legislature offered no defensible reason to deny only indigent criminal defendants the opportunity to seek relief from those charges. Thus, the Court held that equal protection compels sentencing courts, when a defendant so requests, to evaluate ability to pay before ordering the court operations or court facilities assessments. The parties must be afforded the chance to submit evidence and argument on that issue.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court reversed and remanded with instructions to address the outstanding fines and ancillary costs. As a preliminary matter, it modified the judgment to eliminate any uncollected balance of the $154 booking fee, which recent legislation rendered unenforceable. Gov. Code, § 6111, subd. (a); People v. Johnson, 79 Cal. App. 5th 1093 (2022); People v. Lopez-Vinck, 68 Cal. App. 5th 945 (2021). The Court likewise vacated any unpaid portion of the restitution fine under Penal Code § 1465.9, subdivision (d), which extinguishes such obligations 10 years after imposition.

Because the parole revocation fine remains mandatory and must equal the restitution fine, the trial court on remand must calculate what the restitution fine would have been, taking into account the defendant’s inability to pay any amount exceeding the $300 statutory minimum. Pen. Code, § 1202.4, subds. (c), (d); Pen. Code, § 1202.45, subd. (a).

On remand, Hernandez may mount an excessive-fines challenge to any punitive fine under both the federal and state Constitutions. The trial court must also make the statutorily required ability-to-pay finding before ordering the drug program fee. Health & Saf. Code, § 11372.7, subd. (b). And if Hernandez requests it, the court must consider his financial incapacity before imposing the court operations and court facilities assessments, permitting both sides to present relevant evidence and argument. The Court affirmed the Court of Appeal’s judgment in all other respects. See: People v. Kopp, 2025 Cal. LEXIS 8402 (2025).

Editor’s note: Anyone with an interest in criminal fines and ancillary costs, excessive fines challenges, ability-to-pay determinations at sentencing, or equal protection principles governing court-ordered financial obligations is strongly encouraged to read the Court’s full opinion.  

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