Judges: Prisoners on Principle

Kentucky counties are governed by fiscal courts, odd bodies consisting of magistrates whose functions go back to the days of English squires. Each magistrate not only holds preliminary hearings in his district; he also represents it on the county fiscal court, which is roughly equivalent to a city council. Since it has a county’s sole taxing power, the court must pass on all public spending — a chore that al most inevitably engulfs the magistrates in all manner of hot politics as well as cool principles.

After Kentucky’s legislature author ized a 10% hike in school taxes, the Pike County school board duly upped its budget, then sought the necessary majority approval from the eight-magistrate fiscal court. Never, cried Magistrates Taylor Justice, Foster Bentley, Burbage Prater and Darwin Newsome. Because the tax rise exempts utilities from paying more property taxes than they already do, charged the magis trates, the school board actually was seeking an “illegal” 20.8% hike for ordinary citizens?

A higher court ordered the four intransigent magistrates, who had stymied the budget, to approve it forth with or face jail for contempt. By week’s end the rebels had spent 17 days in jail without a sign of surrender.” Each day, some of their fellow jurists and as many as 1,000 of their admiring constituents fed them cakes and chicken through the bars. Having filed a federal suit asking for their freedom, the prisoners patiently waited and happily feasted.