I'll talk about my recent foray into the world of our Judicial System.
Picture it, July 30, 2007 I receive in the mail from the Judicial System a parking ticket for 38.50, for parking somewhere downtown. Baffled I looked at my car and saw it was not mine, but my wife's tags. After some talking with her, we both realized we have NEVER been down that far into downtown, so are clueless as to why we are paying 38.50 for a ticket.
I call the number, and the first lady wasn't much help. Called again, and this time the woman realized what I was saying and asked what type of car are these plates on. I say White Ford, she says the ticket is for a Blue Pontiac.
GREAT! it's a type-o, they'll look it up, give me an extension, and get back with me to see if it can be outright dismissed.
Called back about a month later to find out that "The tags belong to me and if i want to argue it more, I'll have to go to court". This irritated me, as I already know the tags are mine, the car they have them attached to is not. So I called again, got the runaround, called one more time and this lady, very helpful wrote my complaint down again and said her supervisor would let me know. Got the call later that day with the same answer "Set up a court date".
So I did. This past thursday I drove downtown to the courthouse (actually a lot easier to get to than I expected) Got accosted by a homeless man for cash, walked through a metal detector, hand my ankles checked for metal and off I went.
My first impression was that I was the best dressed defendant there. Everyone came in with whatever they were wearing the night before. Here I am in a Pinstripe suit & Tie, looking better than a few of the Lawyers :)
Second was how business-like the whole atmosphere was. My court time was at 11, I was there at 10, so I sat and watched the 10 o'clock proceedings. I believe 10am was for Moving violations rather than parking, as there were quite a few Continuances, a lot of accepting Pleas, and three men in orange jumpsuits who pled guilty to lesser pleas, most of them were 155 fines plus some time served.
All the while this is going on, the Prosecution was sitting at their table doing paper work and occasionally uttering "Yes, Judge/No, Judge" when the Judge asked a question. Organized Chaos.
Okay, so 11am turns around and Parking problems surface. I sit and listen to one "Trial" (it wasn't Law & Order courtroom trial, just the guy up there, the Officer who assigned the ticket, and the Prosecutor [ side note: I'm getting old, the Prosecutor was my age] talking to the Judge. This guy had his adult son own a car that needed to be tagged and fixed. So this brilliant son fixed the tires, then went into his dad's garage, found an old expired license plate, and put it on the car, thus getting the ticket. He was found Not-guilty.
My turn, I stand up and say "Here, your Honor" because it seemed like the right thing to do. Pleaded not guilty, and went to trial. after swearing in the prosecutor read from the ticket with what felt like standard questions on how the ticket was served, how they found my name etc. Judge asked if I had any questions, I did not, then asked me how I wanted to prove I was not guilty.
I said simply, "The plates are mine, the car is not" and produced my registration. The judge asked if the plates were stolen, I told him no. He asked the officer if she could have transposed some of the numbers, she did not think so, but the Judge said, well this is pretty solid here so Not guilty, you're free to go. I left the courthouse, got accosted by the same homeless person, and went back to work.
So basically the ticket, instead of costing me 38.50, cost me 2 hours of work and 4.50 for parking.
As an addendum: wearing a suit at work is asking for a lot of questions. We just don't wear them anymore so you always get asked one of three questions:
Wedding?
Funeral?
Meeting?
I liked some of the looks on peoples faces when I said "I have to go to court today".
