Never imagined a law-abiding guy like me would have to go to a court for a traffic ticket, if anything, but again I would not have imagined having police sirens blaring behind my car just seconds after a U-turn.
Let me tell you what happened prior to my court appearance. It was an evening in July. After my tennis match, I thought I would go to Wal Mart to buy some stuff. It was a different road than I usually I was frightened to say the least at the time and had to wait in my car for the policeman who caught me, which seemed a long 30 minute. During that interval another policeman pulled over and started chatting with the first policeman, who I don’t know was doing all this while. The chat and laughs seem random and not relevant to the situation. I got sweaty from both my tennis, the hot weather, and of course the scare, hoping impatiently for the whole thing to be over. Finally the other police rode away and I sensed it was probably time to face my catcher. I waited and waited and it was still nobody at my window. I got impatient, stepped out of my car, and started towards the police car parked 10 feet behind mine, at which time I was shouted at to go back. Eventually a black guy came by the window and handed me a ticket. I was so nervous and I did not even ask why I got a ticket (there were no signs in sight, which I did not see at the time and was confirmed by my subsequent trip). Then he gave me another ticket when I failed to show a valid insurance card (I did not have the renewed card in the car).
Back to the court. The judge first dealt with housing docs such as occupancy permits and such and the trial cases would have to follow after. He called out people by the order of their last names and each of the defendants will go to the podium where the judge is seated. There is a court clerk who issues case forms and a sidekick judge who reviews some cases and sifts out the defendants who wants to plead guilty instead of going on trial. I took a
Two hours later, I just heard the last few names on the housing docs called. There were still 20 people in the room. I got so discouraged. Do I have to waste the whole night to get my case, because my name would be the last to be called? I almost wanted to just pay the fine and leave, but I dissuaded myself. I had already spent some uneasy days and nights of worrying how the case will turn out and I was not going to give up at the last minute. Here comes the time when the cases became lively and I needed bury my head in the New Yorker articles. A black guy was charged with operating a car with illicit plates and unregistered vehicle while he stated that he was not the driver of the car but just babysat an infant, but would not bring the owner of the car to court to test on his behalf. A pregnant white woman was charged with not stopping at a stop sign. Her defense: she stopped, as the police statement showed, but just not long enough. She also tried to discredit the policeman by asking what color her vehicle was. Denying that her car was silver, as the police replied, she almost made me believe she had won the case. The police then said she did not have a valid insurance card at the time, which prompted the women into saying she now remembered that she was driving her mother’s car that day and it was indeed silver. But she still insisted that she stopped her car, as in the police’s statement, but not long enough. The sidekick judge cut in by saying it was hard for the court to trust her memory, since she could not remember which car she was driving and then want the court to believe she stopped. Then the judge declared the case closed by declaring the women guilty, at which point the defendant raised her voice by announcing the judge believed the words of the police against hers. She did not stop her distrust of the judge and the conspiracy as she grabbed the forms and stepped out of the court. The judge just had it and ordered her to get back into the court and shut up. Interpreted as contemptuous of the court, She was taken back and sat her in a chair at the front. As this happened, I sensed the realness of the court. And it was of note that none of the “not guilty” cases turned out what the defendants wanted.
I was lucky the officer who issued me the ticket was on funeral leave; I only had to pay the court fee and no conviction on my record, hooray! I was really relieved as I was paying the court fee, because no matter how strong a case I have (in this case there was no No-U-turn sign, but a police woman told me if the police thought you caused a congestion or danger, where the flexibility lies), I would have a hard time pulling off, as the trials I witnessed all proved unfailingly.
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