Ability-to-Pay Review for Mandatory Court Operations & Facilities Assessments (Equal Protection), While Punitive Fines Are Initially Tested Under the Excessive Fines Clauses

Case: People v. Kopp, S257844 (Supreme Court of California)
Date: December 29, 2025
Opinion by: Corrigan, J. (Liu, J. concurring; Rothschild, J. concurring and dissenting)

1. Introduction

People v. Kopp addresses a recurring sentencing problem: what constitutional limits apply when courts impose (a) punitive fines and (b) nonpunitive, revenue-raising “ancillary costs” on criminal defendants who claim inability to pay. The case arose from defendant Jason Hernandez’s convictions for violent gang-related offenses (including assault and conspiracy to commit murder), resulting in a lengthy prison sentence and multiple court-ordered monetary obligations.

The key legal issue was not whether Hernandez could ultimately be jailed for nonpayment, but whether the trial court had to conduct an ability-to-pay inquiry before imposing various mandatory financial obligations at sentencing. The Supreme Court granted review to resolve a split among the Courts of Appeal—particularly in the wake of People v. Dueñas (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1157—over the constitutional theory and procedure governing these challenges.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Court carefully separates three categories of criminal-case monetary obligations: (1) punitive fines, (2) ancillary costs, and (3) victim restitution. That taxonomy drives the constitutional analysis.

• Fines: The Court rejects the idea that due process or equal protection generally requires an ability-to-pay hearing as a precondition to imposing punitive fines. Instead, the proper constitutional lens is the excessive fines clauses (U.S. Const., 8th Amend.; Cal. Const., art. I, § 17), which incorporate proportionality and can include ability-to-pay considerations. The Court disapproves People v. Dueñas and certain related cases to the extent they imposed a constitutional requirement of ability-to-pay hearings for fines at imposition.
• Ancillary costs: Because the court operations and facilities assessments are nonpunitive revenue measures also mirrored in civil-fee schemes where indigent litigants can obtain fee waivers, equal protection requires an inability-to-pay consideration upon the defendant’s request.
• Legislative changes: The Court applies statutory amendments that render certain previously imposed charges uncollectible/vacated (notably the booking fee and the restitution fine after time), and directs remand proceedings consistent with the new constitutional and statutory framework.

3. Analysis

3.1. Precedents Cited (and How They Shaped the Decision)

A. Defining “fines” vs. “costs”: punishment matters

• Southern Union Co. v. United States (2012) 567 U.S. 343 and United States v. Bajakajian (1998) 524 U.S. 321: Used to anchor what a “criminal fine” is—“penalties inflicted by the sovereign”—and to frame excessive-fines review as proportionality-based.
• People v. Alford (2007) 42 Cal.4th 749: Reinforces the proposition that certain assessments are not “punishment” and therefore are not governed by the same constitutional rules as punitive fines.
• People v. Ruiz (2018) 4 Cal.5th 1100: Critical to the Court’s classification of drug “fees” (e.g., Health & Saf. Code, §§ 11372.5, 11372.7) as in substance punitive fines—despite “fee” labeling. This supports the Court’s broader methodological point: labels do not control.
• People v. McCullough (2013) 56 Cal.4th 589: Cited for the proposition that booking fees are not punishment “for constitutional purposes” (though the booking fee’s enforceability was largely overtaken by later legislation).

B. Due process/equal protection line of U.S. Supreme Court cases: why they do not constitutionalize an “ability-to-pay first” rule for fines

• Griffin v. Illinois (1956) 351 U.S. 12 and its progeny (Long v. District Court of Iowa (1966) 385 U.S. 192; Gardner v. California (1969) 393 U.S. 367; Williams v. Oklahoma City (1969) 395 U.S. 458; Mayer v. Chicago (1971) 404 U.S. 189; Burns v. Ohio (1959) 360 U.S. 252; Lane v. Brown (1963) 372 U.S. 477; Smith v. Bennett (1961) 365 U.S. 708): The Court treats these as access-to-courts cases—states cannot condition appellate or collateral review on payments indigent defendants cannot make. That logic does not automatically translate into a rule prohibiting the initial imposition of statutorily authorized punitive fines.
• Williams v. Illinois (1970) 399 U.S. 235, Tate v. Short (1971) 401 U.S. 395, and Bearden v. Georgia (1983) 461 U.S. 660: These cases prohibit incarcerating or otherwise escalating custody consequences solely because a person cannot pay. The majority reads them as regulating enforcement and consequences of nonpayment—not creating a universal constitutional prerequisite that courts must find ability to pay before imposing punitive fines.

C. Excessive fines doctrine: where fine challenges belong

• People ex rel. Lockyer v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. (2005) 37 Cal.4th 707: Cited for the Court’s point that excessiveness inquiries (and, by extension, due process concerns about excessive financial punishment) converge around proportionality. The majority uses it to justify channeling challenges to punitive fines into the excessive fines clauses.
• People v. Lowery (2020) 43 Cal.App.5th 1046, People v. Aviles (2019) 39 Cal.App.5th 1055, and People v. Gutierrez (2019) 35 Cal.App.5th 1027 (conc. opn. of Benke, Acting P. J.): Cited for the practical pathway: remand permits defendants to raise excessive-fines arguments with factual development, including ability-to-pay evidence.

D. Equal protection framework and the civil/criminal fee comparison

• People v. Hardin (2024) 15 Cal.5th 834: Provides the modern articulation of equal protection analysis and, critically, clarifies that when the law facially distinguishes between groups, courts “no longer need to ask at the threshold whether the two groups are similarly situated”; the inquiry becomes whether the disparity is adequately justified under the applicable standard (here, rational basis).
• People v. Chatman (2018) 4 Cal.5th 277: Supplies the Court’s general equal-protection tiering and rational-basis language.
• James v. Strange (1972) 407 U.S. 128 and Fuller v. Oregon (1974) 417 U.S. 40: James is the centerpiece: Kansas could not subject indigent criminal defendants to uniquely harsh debt collection conditions compared to other civil judgment debtors. The majority analogizes California’s scheme because civil litigants get robust fee waivers but criminal defendants cannot avoid mandatory court operations/facilities assessments. Fuller is used to show how a recoupment scheme can survive if it preserves ordinary debtor protections—underscoring that discriminatory treatment is the constitutional problem.
• People v. Guzman (2019) 8 Cal.5th 673 and In re Lance W. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 873: Cited to distinguish contexts where civil and criminal litigants can rationally be treated differently (e.g., truth-in-evidence rules).
• People v. Rountree (2013) 56 Cal.4th 823: Also distinguishes civil/criminal procedural differences (e.g., depositions) and explains that differences are often rational. The majority uses it to contrast those contexts with this case, where the state charges both civil and criminal court users similar “court funding” amounts yet only offers fee waivers in the civil arena.
• People v. Estrada (2024) 104 Cal.App.5th Supp. 33: Cited as supportive authority for the equal protection analysis in this specific assessments context.

E. The Court’s explicit disapprovals

The majority disapproves the following cases “to the extent they are inconsistent with our opinion”: People v. Cowan (2020) 47 Cal.App.5th 32; People v. Belloso (2019) 42 Cal.App.5th 647; People v. Castellano (2019) 33 Cal.App.5th 485; and People v. Dueñas (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1157. The practical effect is to end the “Dueñas-style” constitutional requirement that trial courts must hold ability-to-pay hearings before imposing all fines/fees as a matter of due process.

3.2. Legal Reasoning

A. The Court’s organizing move: classification drives the constitutional test

The Court’s reasoning begins with a functional classification:

• Punitive fines punish criminal conduct and reflect legislative judgments about punishment.
• Ancillary costs (even if called “fees” or “assessments”) are generally nonpunitive fundraising/reimbursement mechanisms.
• Victim restitution compensates victims and is constitutionally/legislatively treated differently (and was not ordered here).

Once categorized, the constitutional pathway follows: fines are tested for excessiveness (proportionality); ancillary costs trigger equal protection concerns when they operate discriminatorily against the indigent.

B. Why the Court rejects a universal “ability-to-pay first” constitutional rule for fines

The Court reads the Griffin/Williams/Tate/Bearden line as policing (1) access to courts and (2) incarceration or punitive escalation due to nonpayment, not as forbidding the Legislature from authorizing punishment in the form of fines. The majority underscores that Bearden v. Georgia (1983) 461 U.S. 660 itself acknowledges the state’s “fundamental interest” in punishing “rich and poor” and states that “poverty in no way immunizes” a defendant from punishment.

For fine amounts, the Court insists that the correct constitutional inquiry is whether the fine is excessive, which turns on proportionality (“gross disproportionality”) under United States v. Bajakajian (1998) 524 U.S. 321. The Court therefore remands to allow Hernandez to raise excessive-fines arguments and to develop facts relevant to that inquiry.

C. Why equal protection compels an inability-to-pay inquiry for court operations and facilities assessments (upon request)

The court operations and facilities assessments are mandatory in criminal cases, but civil law provides a “robust fee waiver system” designed to ensure court fees do not block access to the courts (Gov. Code, §§ 68630–68637). The majority emphasizes legislative history showing both civil and criminal charges were enacted to fund the courts, often deposited into the same funds, yet only civil litigants can obtain waivers.

Under rational basis review (per People v. Hardin (2024) 15 Cal.5th 834), the majority finds no plausible justification for denying indigent criminal defendants a waiver opportunity for the same category of “court funding” charges when indigent civil litigants can avoid those charges through fee waiver. It analogizes to James v. Strange (1972) 407 U.S. 128: the state cannot impose uniquely harsh debt burdens on indigent criminal defendants as compared to other debtors without rational justification.

Importantly, the remedy is procedural and conditional: “upon request” the trial court must consider inability to pay before imposing these two assessments, and must permit both sides to present and contest evidence.

D. The separate writings sharpen the fault lines

• Justice Liu’s concurrence: Agrees with the majority’s two main holdings but argues the Court should go further on unresolved statewide issues: (1) the constitutionality of Pen. Code, § 1202.4, subd. (c) (minimum restitution fine without considering inability to pay); (2) whether due process/equal protection can be violated by “cascading consequences” debt traps (citing People v. Dueñas (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1157); and (3) detailed standards for ability-to-pay determinations (burden, presumptions, and whether speculative future prison wages count).
• Justice Rothschild’s concurrence/dissent: Would reject the equal protection holding as insufficiently deferential under rational basis review (citing FCC v. Beach Communications, Inc. (1993) 508 U.S. 307 and People v. Hardin (2024) 15 Cal.5th 834). The dissent posits conceivable rational bases: civil fee waivers protect access to courts, while postconviction assessments do not; and criminal proceedings may entail greater operational costs. The majority, however, treats the parallel civil/criminal “same-purpose” funding design as defeating those justifications in this narrow context.

3.3. Impact

A. A statewide procedural rule for two ubiquitous assessments

Going forward, in California criminal cases, if a defendant requests it, trial courts must conduct an inability-to-pay consideration before imposing: (1) the Pen. Code, § 1465.8, subd. (a)(1) court operations assessment, and (2) the Gov. Code, § 70373, subd. (a)(1) court facilities assessment. This is a significant operational change because these assessments are routine and mandatory by text.

B. Doctrinal consolidation: “Dueñas” constitutional theory is curtailed for fines

By directing fine challenges into excessive-fines doctrine and disapproving People v. Dueñas (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1157 and related cases, the Court reduces the reach of the “ability-to-pay as due process prerequisite to imposition” framework for punitive fines. Defendants can still argue inability to pay where statutes require it, and can challenge fines as “excessive,” but the constitutional hook is now primarily proportionality.

C. Legislative pressure point

The Court explicitly urges legislative reconsideration of ancillary-payment policy. Coupled with the recent fee-elimination and debt-vacatur statutes (Gov. Code, § 6111; Pen. Code, § 1465.9, subd. (d)), Kopp signals that piecemeal funding through mandatory assessments—without a coherent waiver structure—poses constitutional and administrative risk.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• “Punitive fine” vs. “ancillary cost”: A punitive fine is part of the punishment for the crime. An ancillary cost is mainly a revenue measure to fund court operations or facilities (even if called a “fee”). The label in the statute is not decisive; the function is.
• “Excessive fines” analysis: The Constitution forbids fines that are grossly disproportionate to the offense. Courts give deference to legislative penalty choices, but they can strike down or reduce truly extreme fines.
• “Equal protection” problem here: If civil litigants can avoid court-funding charges through fee waivers because they are poor, the state must justify why poor criminal defendants must pay similar court-funding charges without any waiver option. The Court finds no adequate justification for these two assessments.
• “Upon request”: The trial court does not have to hold a waiver/ability-to-pay inquiry automatically in every case; the defendant must ask for it.
• Vacatur vs. resentencing: Some amounts are not just reduced—they are legally “unenforceable and uncollectible” and must be vacated by operation of new statutes (e.g., booking fee debt; certain old restitution fine balances).

5. Conclusion

People v. Kopp reorients California’s constitutional treatment of criminal monetary obligations by: (1) channeling challenges to punitive fine amounts into the excessive fines clauses rather than a broad due process/equal protection ability-to-pay prerequisite, and (2) establishing that equal protection requires (upon request) inability-to-pay consideration before imposing two mandatory, nonpunitive court-funding assessments. The decision narrows the doctrinal legacy of People v. Dueñas (2019) 30 Cal.App.5th 1157 for fines, while simultaneously expanding ability-to-pay protections for a specific class of mandatory assessments that mirror civil fees subject to waiver.