BOSTON (AP) – A judge on Thursday ordered Bristol County Sheriff Thomas Hodgson to stop charging inmates fees for rent, medical visits and high school equivalency tests.

The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit filed last month by more than 100 inmates who claimed the $5-per-day fee for rent and other charges violate their constitutional rights and amount to an unauthorized tax.

Bristol Superior Court Judge Richard Moses ruled that Hodgson had exceeded his authority by imposing the fees.

“If the Legislature had intended to permit sheriffs to deduct room and board fees from inmate funds, it could have expressly authorized such a deduction,” Moses said in his ruling.

Hodgson said he plans to appeal the ruling and will ask the judge to allow the fees to remain in effect during the appeal. A hearing on the request was scheduled Friday in Bristol Superior Court.

Hodgson, a controversial sheriff who was first appointed in 1997, began charging inmates $5 per day for rent in July 2002. He also instituted fees for medical visits, haircuts and high school equivalency tests.

In his ruling, Moses agreed with attorneys for the inmates that the fees violate a state law requiring Hodgson to safeguard inmates’ funds until their release. The judge also agreed that Hodgson does not have the authority to charge the fees, noting that a state law requiring county inmates to pay for their incarceration was repealed in 1904.

The ruling struck down all of the fees imposed by Hodgson, except for a fee for inmate haircuts. Hodgson has been charging inmates $5 per haircut, but the court said that amount must be reduced to $1.50, an amount set by the commissioner of the Department of Correction.

Hodgson said he imposed the rent fee – which he calls a “cost of care” fee – because he believes it could help teach inmates to accept responsibility for their actions.

“I feel that every day inmates should know that there is a cost associated with the services they are getting,” Hodgson said. “The programs, the clothing, the meals – all of that is being paid for by (taxpayers) who had no involvement in their decision to commit crimes that landed them in jail.”

James Pingeon, who represents the inmates, said Hodgson “took the law into his own hands” when he imposed the fees.

“We think if the sheriff truly wants to teach prisoners responsibility, he ought to provide them with education, with jobs, with rehabilitation programs, and not charge fees, which in reality end up being paid by the families, not the inmates,” said Pingeon, litigation director for Massachusetts Correctional Legal Services Inc.

Hodgson has infuriated civil rights advocates during his tenure by reinstituting chain gangs, removing televisions and taking away weightlifting equipment for inmates.

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Editor’s Note: Denise Lavoie is a Boston-based reporter covering the courts and legal issues.

AP-ES-07-29-04 1752EDT