Yesterday was the final day I’ll ever have to attend traffic court. After calling into work sick, Denise and I arrived at the court a little earlier than 9:00 am. The plan was to meet up with my lawyer. The lawyer and I would go over the information, then he’d speak to the police officer who issued the tickets. I was a little worried since every time I met up with the lawyer, it seemed like he did not remember anything about the case. I was even more worried because it soon became 10:00 am and the lawyer had not yet arrived.
My name was called to speak with the police officer outside of the court room, in an attempt to bargain with him so my penalties would be less. My tickets were for Speeding (65 in a 55 or something like that), No Insurance (I had insurance, I just couldn’t locate my card!) and Driving While Suspended (I didn’t know I was suspended for failure to appear at another traffic court, though I should have probably known).
If convicted of Driving While Suspended, I would have mandatory jail time. In any case, I was called to speak with the officer, and as I was walking up to him, my lawyer walked in the building. They proceeded to chat for a while. I had a letter from the insurance company saying I was covered at the time, but the officer was under the impression the prosecutor would not take the letter and would need a valid insurance card. He went back in the courtroom to talk to the prosecutor about that.
I was a little concerned about Denise, who was sitting in the court room not knowing what was going on with me while I was outside for about a half an hour. While we were waiting for the officer, I reminded my lawyer that if I get convicted of Driving While Suspended, I would have mandatory jail time since it was my second offense.
This worried him. A lot. But not enough to keep him off the phone with some other person about some other case.
Eventually the officer came back outside the court room where we were waiting and told us the prosecutor would take the letter and he would change the speeding ticket to a lesser offense. “This is your lucky day… you’re getting off easy,” he told me.
After he went back inside the courtroom, the lawyer followed him in to discuss the bit about the Driving While Suspended offense.
At this point, I was still waiting outside the court room, thinking about what I would do if I had to go to jail. My lawyer said sometimes they’ll just keep someone in a cell until midnight and then let them go. However, the maximum sentence by law had just been changed from 5 days to 20 days. While I’m not sure if it applied to me, it would make explaining things to my boss at work a little more difficult.
I did not know what was going on for the next half hour. Denise, who was still in the court room, saw my lawyer arguing with the police officer on the other side of the room. (It was a large room, about the size of a high school auditorium, with pew-like bench seats instead of chairs.) The officer was making gestures as if to say, “No, I can’t accept that,” while the lawyer was practically begging with the guy. They took out a book of some sort and the lawyer began pointing to things on different pages, and they were both reading parts of it.
Some time later, my lawyer came back outside the court room where I had burrowed a path by my pacing. He had a sheet of paper and looked somewhat pleased and relieved. He showed me the paper and explained, “He’s reducing the speeding ticket, eliminating the No Insurance, and changing the Driving While Suspended to Driving With An Expired License. You’ll have to pay $700 but you’re not going to jail and your license will only be suspended for 5 days. You are incredibly lucky.”
We both went back into the court room and went up to the defense bench, the judge asked us a few questions, and I was sent to pay the fine. The lawyer later explained that it was quite difficult getting the police officer to agree to the reduced tickets, saying, “The officer could tell that I was one of the few attorneys who knows what he is talking about, not like the other people in the room.”
After a few very stressful hours, I payed the $732 in fines and got out of there. From this point on, I think I will always consider Friday the 13 a very lucky day.
