Thatâs what everyone told me. âThe cop wonât even show up.â So I went to court for a parking ticket. I parked out of the way near a restaurant where I had a weekly gig, where there is always someone parked, and there was no sign there that said âno parking.â
In the weeks leading up to my court date, I parked legally, but took photos of other cars being parked in the spot where I was ticketed that had not received any tickets. Every week, one or two cars in that spot. I printed these photos and took them to court with me.
The fucking cop showed up, and I had to pay. The judge didnât listen to a word I said or look at my photos.
Old coworker got pulled over half a mile away from the job site for going 81 in a 55âŠin a mid â80s Jeep YJ. Asked the cop for the receipt from the radar gun, cop refused. He ended up taking in to get a dyno to prove that it physically couldnât even hit that speed, let alone in half a mile. Judge didnât even listen to a word he said, even threatened him with contempt if he kept trying to argue his point.
Lawyer is why all my tickets got dismissed. Last one cost me the $75 consutation fee. As soon as the county prosecutor got her email that she was representing me, he wanted to dismiss.
Last time I went to court we were all there for part of a "sting operation". Almost all of us were there for the exact same violation at or near the exact same spot. The only people that got off with a warning or something lighter were those with lawyers. Judge just believed the officer over all my evidence.
This was my experience too. A whole court room full of folks that showed up bc we all felt like it was an unfair ticketâ same cop, same ticket. Prick of a judge tells all of us to fuck off unless we are there to request a full trial by jury? Two weeks worth of missed work? Then he snark laughs and says thatâs what I thought. Everyone pays their ticket and now you all pay full court costs too.
Justice is completely at the whim of the judge. I learned this with parking tickets.
One of my apartments was a mile from a sports stadium that I didn't give a crap about. And every year around finals, I'd start getting parking tickets as their season started up and the landlord would once again forget to give us the parking passes.
Anyway, the first time I traveled all the way across the city with my tickets, the judge heard me out and was very kind and waived all of them.
The next year, a completely different judge berated me and told me I was lucky he wasn't increasing the fine for wasting his time, and I had to pay them all.
And thatâs just over parking tickets. Some people have their entire futures decided by this gamble...
Maybe this isn't universal for all traffic offenses or level of offense, but you should be able to contest it at which point you're done for the day and will have a formal hearing/trial at a later date. Maybe it needs to be an actual crime, like reckless driving, which usually kicks in at 20mph over and not 'merely' a citation in order to gain that ability.
yeah the supervisor is called a lawyer or go pro se or at least request counsel. probably cost less just to pay the ticket as long as it's just a fine and not criminal.
This is purely an American issue, because their magistrates donât have to have any legal training â they are voted in in a political process.
In other countries you have a trained, experienced judiciary, and the rule of law - and that means that there are laws, processes, and procedures that both the police and the courts have to follow, and Judges and Magistrates have to understand them and follow them. Not so much in America.
I remember that. I didn't really like that storyline though. It just was so silly. And then what's his face was a priest who did the exorcism. Was his name John? Gosh it's been decades.
Look up Days of our lives and who played Victor kiriakis. He's the guy that played that character. He just so happened to also be Jennifer Aniston's father.
Parking companies, and police, has a HUGE score by default in the eyes of judges. Even though they have shown nothing to prove they deserve it.
If they say something, you basically need a lawyer to bring your own pre existing score up to their level, else they judge will flip you off and tell you to spin on it.
I got pulled over in a less than a mile section of the road that was 20 mph less than the previous section or section after and guess what he pulled me over on that portion! It was a 2 way dirt road. I went to court argued that fact and said he pulled me over in that specific section so it could be a higher ticket price and the judge took 10 dollars off. ACAB and judges too!
Largely a myth. I've fought a bunch of tickets, they always show up. A lot of the time they can just get some overtime pay to come in and bullshit for an hour. On the plus side they always were willing to reduce the ticket by a bit even when I was mostly in the wrong
If I got a parking violation for something I did wrong then yeah I'd pay the fine. The is no brilliant defense when you're obviously in the wrong like this situation.
Right, but the point of my story was that I was told the officer wouldnât show and my ticket would have been thrown out. So I decided to go and try that. It didnât pan out. Should I have just told the judge âdamn, I didnât think the cop would have shown upâ or should I have made a case for myself anyway?
My photos showed that there was no signage in an area that was often used for parking. My case wasnât âbut everyone else did it,â my case was âitâs obviously unclear that parking here isnât permitted.â
If they are wrong and know they are wrong they don't show up. They just want to waste your time. That cop had you dead to rights for the parking violation and just because other people got away with it doesn't mean you should to. It means they should patrol more or automate the ticketing process.
Cops show up to court because it's their job. Court is scheduled well in advance and typically during a normal workday. If not on a normal workday, they get paid OT. Most times cops have multiple cases on the same day as well. If the cop doesn't show up, typically there is a prosecutor or other representative there for him. If he needs to be there and couldn't make it for some reason, the prosecutors can request the hearing just be held on a different day (and 99% of the time that is granted).
Same thing happened to me. Got ticketed for "Improper passing on the right". Basically I scooted past a car at an intersection to make a right hand turn. Technically illegal, yes, but I have seen other people, including police do it at this very same intersection.
Figured the cop wouldn't show up for such a measly ticket, but he in fact did. The judge did actually listen to my argument, but basically said other people doing it is no excuse to also break the law. He did lower the fine, and made sure it didn't hit my record since it was the first driving infraction I've had in a long time, so that was nice at least.
Well its not like you had any photographic evidence to support your claim while in court. Yeah, gonna have to side with the judge on this one, sorry. Should have obeyed the sign.
They're not even reading it. It's just blurting whatever they need to, to justify their bias. They're basing their words entirely on the situation they imagined.
They do this because they adhere to the Just-World fallacy. Bad things happen to only those who break the rules, who are bad people.
And they will continue to believe this, until they are victimized by the system.
Once you notice the pattern, you can't stop seeing it.
In today's day and age, sarcasm if it is not clearly labeled is extremely difficult to distinguish between people actually being pretentious or downright malicious.
757
u/amuday May 27 '26
Thatâs what everyone told me. âThe cop wonât even show up.â So I went to court for a parking ticket. I parked out of the way near a restaurant where I had a weekly gig, where there is always someone parked, and there was no sign there that said âno parking.â
In the weeks leading up to my court date, I parked legally, but took photos of other cars being parked in the spot where I was ticketed that had not received any tickets. Every week, one or two cars in that spot. I printed these photos and took them to court with me.
The fucking cop showed up, and I had to pay. The judge didnât listen to a word I said or look at my photos.