Where were you when you learned Donald Trump became the first former president convicted of a felony?

I was walking out of the Street Roots building. It was a hectic day, and I hadn’t caught the news when I saw a text from my spouse: “Trump found GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS!!!!!” If ever there was a time to use all-caps, this was it.

As I processed this news, I walked by a man who was shouting deeply. These bellows seemed to indicate tremendous pain. I asked him if he needed help. He stopped shouting, looked at me and said, “No.” Then he began to bellow again, a sonar quake of sorrow.

I walked by a man’s tent. He was homeless in Old Town for years but secured housing during the early pandemic when more federal aid flowed into rental assistance and other areas. He was evicted last month.

I boarded the MAX just when a worker with the Trimet Safety Response Team checked on a man to see if he was breathing. His sleep looked alarmingly still — and in the time of cheap, abundant fentanyl, stillness is alarming. He woke to assure the worker he was simply exhausted, finding sleep where he could.

I walked by person after person for whom the justice system is rarely just. People in poverty are left to languish in jail. They are oppressed by fines, fees and other debt. Legal entanglements choke out basic opportunities.

The fact that Trump was found guilty by a jury who abided by the facts of the case was, to say the least, reassuring. It’s been seven years since Kellyanne Conway represented the White House in her assertion of “alternative facts.” That comment defines truth in the Trump era.

The work of journalism to report accurate facts sometimes feels like a radical defense of democracy. So does this verdict.

Judge Juan Merchan interacted with Trump similarly to how he interacts with defendants in the Mental Health Court he oversees on Wednesdays, according to Washington Post reporter Tom Jackson:

“Each day when court opens, Merchan has looked straight at the defendant and said, ‘Good morning, Mr. Trump,’ a practice he employs in all of his hearings. Unlike most defendants, Trump doesn’t often answer.”

Jackson described how Merchan bent the Trump trial around his Wednesday responsibility to the Mental Health Court, in which “criminal defendants are placed in rehabilitative programs rather than jail. The judge has overseen this docket for 13 years, and he pays careful attention to each case, speaking directly to each person as he gauges their progress.”

I appreciated the judge might respond in an even, consistent way across class, whether someone is impoverished or a wealthy former president. While that fairness is a low bar, it’s a glimmer of justice within a supremely inequitable system.

Yet there’s plenty about Trump’s situation that reminds us how much the justice system arcs toward the wealthy and thoroughly away from the poor.

Trump was released without bail. Poor people are stranded in jail because they cannot pay bail. The Fair and Just Prosecution think tank describes this as a “two-tiered system of justice that imposes a ‘poverty penalty’ on individuals who are financially strapped.”

Quite simply, people are expected to pay for their freedom. Street Roots' 2018 investigation on fines and fees revealed monetary sanctions target the poor more than the well-off.

This year, The Sentencing Project reported “fines, fees, and predatory pricing exacerbate the economic precarity of justice-involved Americans and their families” and that these “predatory monetary practices exist at every phase of the criminal legal process.”

Afforded less legal representation, people in poverty take plea bargains, cementing a criminal record that then pushes them further into poverty. People who have been imprisoned earn 52% less than those who haven’t, according to the Brennan Center report, “Conviction, Imprisonment, and Lost Earnings: How Involvement with the Criminal Justice System Deepens Inequality.”

Even if a person doesn’t go to prison, they still earn 22% less with a felony on their record, and 16% less with a misdemeanor.

Incarceration and felonies block people from employment and housing — unlike Trump’s situation. His felony will not be a barrier to running for the presidency. It’s a job with built-in housing.

If only this were the case for more people.

This conviction shows a glimmer of fairness — a reminder that the judicial system can uphold facts, not “alternative facts.”

It’s also a reminder how unjust the justice system is. It is, in fact, an engine of poverty.

Street Roots is an award-winning weekly investigative publication covering economic, environmental and social inequity. The newspaper is sold in Portland, Oregon, by people experiencing homelessness and/or extreme poverty as means of earning an income with dignity. Street Roots newspaper operates independently of Street Roots advocacy and is a part of the Street Roots organization. Learn more about Street Roots. Support your community newspaper by making a one-time or recurring gift today.