Two traffic court appearances in two weeks: two totally
different experiences.
Harrison Town Court with Judge Lust was bedlam – the water
pipes had burst in the basement, the courtroom was packed with a line out one
of its double doors to the entrance.
Those scheduled to contest tickets sat through a hearing between a
landlord and tenant who did not pay her rent on time - the landlord also wanted
her out for petty annoyances. The next
trial was between a woman who illegally sublet her home for the third time and
who finally agreed to a guilty plea because it would cost her over $80,000 less
to do so. She had to go through the
drama of not accepting a guilty plea, movie tables from their snug spots
against the high judge bench, and trying, stubborn, Italian woman to wiggle her
way out of guilt by pleading not-guilty.
She reminded me of my grandmother but was not a very good actress,
claiming she knew nothing about her prior offenses or the law that prohibited
subletting.
Ultimately, because of the chaotic situation with the broken
basement bathrooms, a woman took all of us with no prior traffic offenses into
the lobby still filled with people blankly waiting, told us that we could agree
to pay the $175 fee (mine was less because the offense occurred before sometime
in September when the DMV add-on fee increased) without accruing the 2-3 points
against our records. We lined up to pay
and that was done.
My second experience, just Tuesday, was in the Eastchester
Town Court. I reported to a woman on the
other side of a counter window, was asked if my name was listed on the sheet
hung by a tack on a cork board to my left, and was told to take a seat in one
of the floor-mounted chairs inside the courtroom of thirty or so seated people. Proceedings began on time at ten am sharp, the
prosecutor explained to us in detail, a system that he has used for years for
reducing the points penalty for violations, how to respond per already
organized (by violation) piles of paper which his male assistant wearing a golg
shirt too small for him, dutifully handed him.
He wasted no time and we were out of there by 11:30, after paying the
fines. I was lucky enough to live in the
stack of no previous violations. The
prosecutor was so organized and clear when he called my name to query as to
whether or not I would accept his plea that I said, “Thank you, yes.”
Thank you for allowing me to both witness and participate in
the business of running a town. It’s
people like me who don’t to the efficacy or not, of the inner legal workings of
the justice system as commerce. It felt
a bit more like bartering over goods.
Going forward, there will be no response to screaming
children in the back seat of the van I drive for them (not me but perhaps us) or
the honking at me and my California stickers affixed on either side of the back
window by the driver behind me insisting, loudly, that I need to make a right
turn on red even if I failed to get a clear view of the sign, always posted in
my blind spot, and perhaps yours too. I
will also not fail to see a stop sign at a t-intersection during a crisis, even
though there are far more legitimate places for posting proper traffic signage
that would facilitate the safety and cohesion of driving patterns among New
Yorkers everywhere.
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