You Have The Right: My adventure with our judicial system.

On January 5th I was hustling home from an afternoon of errand running when I took a short cut that turned into the long way.

We wanted to take the kids to see ‘The Princess and the Frog’ and if I didn’t make it back within the next half hour, we would miss the matinee showing. I was speeding home when I abruptly came to a school zone at the bottom of a hill. I was driving alone and probably had my music turned up too loud. I didn’t slow down as quickly as I should have and as soon as I entered the school zone from the corner of my eye I saw the flashing lights from the policeman’s motorcycle.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?” He had on those metallic sunglasses that only show your own reflection when you look into them.

Yeesh. Really? Let me guess… “Does it have something to do with the school zone?”

“Uh-huh. License, registration and proof of insurance please.”

Anyways. Turns out that I hadn’t put the new 2010 insurance card in the glove box yet and I was going 20 mph in a 15 mph zone. Double fines because it was a school zone. Ouch. But here’s the real kick in the crotch; he also gave me a ticket for the restriction I had on my driver’s license.

“Where’s your glasses?”

I held up my sunglasses that I had taken off and put in my lap because I think it is good manners to show people your eyes while talking, but that’s just me.

“No. Your seeing eye glasses?”

Huh? Oh! “I don’t wear glasses anymore. I had Lasik about seven years ago.”

“According to your driver’s license you should be wearing glasses. Get your eyes checked at the Motor Vehicle Department and they’ll give you a new license. Show it to the judge and he or she will drop the charge. Here you are. Drive safe.”

What the what?! I understood the first two, but this other citation for not changing my driver’s license was crazy to me.

I got my license changed; this required a four-hour field trip to MVD hell. I dug up the receipt for my Lasik and got a letter from the eye doctor saying I could see without corrective lenses. I got our current insurance cards that showed coverage on our vehicle at the time of citation. Then I took all this to the judge on my court date last month.

Olen came with me to court because I couldn’t convince him I would be alright on my own. When the judge called me up to the front she looked at my file on her desk and told me about my two civil citations and my one criminal offense (the driver’s license one). She said it was a Class 2 misdemeanor and then read me my rights (“You have the right to remain silent…etc.) and how a misdemeanor is punishable by a $750 fine and/or some amount of time in jail that I can't rememember because my brain blacked out when she said "jail". She said that with a guilty plea she could see my evidence and dismiss charges and jail time for the insurance and driver’s license charges and I could go to traffic school for the speeding ticket one.

“How do you plead?”

“Not guilty.” I don’t want a misdemeanor on my driving record!

She said if that was my plea then she couldn’t make any decisions and I would need to be rescheduled to appear again at court and show my evidence to the state prosecutor. She told me again that I wouldn’t have to do that with a guilty plea. Then Olen came up to the judge’s “bench” from the sitting area and freaked the judge out. She made him state his name and birth date and had him sit back down. Poor guy just wanted to hold my hand is all.

“Well, if I said I was guilty I would have a misdemeanor on my record, right?”

“Yes, but that means different things to different people.”

What does that even mean? “No. I am not guilty.”

“Okay, see my clerk and get your new court date. Thank you.”

First I was really mad at the policeman, but I don’t think he would have given me a ticket if he knew just how complicated it would be to correct the citation. Well, I like to think he wouldn’t. Then I was mad at the judge for wasting my time and the state’s money on making me come back. Then I made myself really stressed out that the prosecutor would not dismiss my insurance and driver’s license citations; I was fine with going to school or paying the speeding ticket, I know I did wrong there.

Today I went to court for the second time to fight this thing off. This time I made Olen stay home. I signed the check-in clip board in courtroom 305 and took a seat. I sat and watched the people around me get called up for parole and restriction order violations and DUIs and thought how laughable it was that I was there because I don’t wear glasses anymore, but my license said I did. (However, I do have glasses I wear at night because I get fuzzy halos around the street lights when I drive. It’s a side effect from my corrective surgery.)

Well, the sharp young prosecutor called my name and I followed him back to a small room with a desk and a couple of chairs. He opens his file and tells me my options again and some deal the state was offering if I pleaded guilty. Then he took a look at my receipt, new driver’s license and insurance card and with two strokes of his pen crossed them off my file.

“With the big ones out of the way, I think the state will move to dismiss the speeding ticket as well.” One more stroke of the pen.

“Dismiss? All of them?” Prayers were just answered.

“Yes. Just wait for the judge to call your name and he will give you your copy of the dismissal.” Then he smiled and I like lawyers.

On my dismal form it says “Reason for the motion:”, and under is hand-written, “In the interest of justice”.