(a) An offender may be assessed an application fee when he or she is approved for the program. The amount of the fee for participation in the program shall be in addition to any court costs, assessments for crime victim’s compensation fund, Department of Forensic Science assessments, drug, alcohol, or anger management treatments required by law, restitution, costs of supervision, or treatment. A schedule of payments for any of these fees may be established by the district attorney.
(b) The amount of the application fee shall be determined by the district attorney and may not exceed the following amounts for each case for which the offender makes application for acceptance into the pretrial diversion program:
(1) Felony offenses: Up to nine hundred dollars ($900).
(2) Misdemeanor offenses: Up to seven hundred fifty dollars ($750).
(c) An applicant may not be denied access into the pretrial diversion program based solely on his or her inability to pay. Pretrial diversion program fees as established by this subpart may be waived or reduced for just cause, including indigency of the applicant, at the discretion of the district attorney. Any determination of indigency of the offender for the purposes of pretrial diversion fee mitigation shall be made by the district attorney. In the event the offender is determined to be indigent, a periodic review of the offender’s indigency status may be conducted by the court to determine if the offender is no longer indigent. If the offender is determined to be indigent by the district attorney, nothing in this subpart shall prohibit the offender from being placed on a payment plan wherein the entire victim restitution, court costs, fines, fees, and pretrial diversion fees are collected in total.
(d) Application fees required by this subpart shall be collected by the district attorney’s office. All pretrial diversion program fees shall be deposited in a timely manner by the district attorney into the District Attorney’s Solicitor Fund as described by this subpart. The district attorney shall make the deposits in a timely manner pursuant to commonly accepted accounting practices. The District Attorney’s Solicitor Fund shall be subject to regular audits by the Alabama Department of Examiners of Public Accounts.
Last modified: May 3, 2021