This is going to be interesting.

I am an amateur barrister, and a damn good one, if I do so say so myself (and I do, LOL)

She, on the other hand, is this poor-little doe-eyed little bambi-girl that suffers from panic attacks in situations no more stressful than a dog off a leash.

She was caught speeding 56 in a 35. Here you have to pay the fine and costs in order to defend yourself in court. She has already done that. Court is less than an hour.

I can tell she hasn't slept a wink. I made the mistake of investigating the issues and providing her what would be (imo) an excellent defense.

She thinks she was doing no more than 44. Her son was with her at the time of the traffic stop. That is what he says she was doing when the lights came on, he cannot come to court. I'm going.

THey used a robic 800 and timed her over a 227.04 foot span. That robic is a fancy name for a stopwatch that costs under 70 bucks. The duration of the timing was under 3 seconds. No radar involved.

The cop made mistakes on the citation, getting the wrong model of vehicle and citing the incident as having occurred on a numbered block of the road that doesn't exist.

The bad news is several years ago I fought something I did not even do. I walked into one of these bum-fuck kangaroo courts and got to pay the same fine I would have paid + 10 times the fine in the myriad court costs for the privilege of exercising my right to defend myself. This is weighing on her mind, I can tell.

I will report the results later today. I will be pleased if she doesn't just freak out in court.

Good luck to your wife!

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Wow...........i'd say offer "Andy and Barney" a bribe!!! LOLOL!!!

Iwent through something similar with my wife back in the 1990's. My wife was clocked at 65 in a 55 zone. The Marinette county cop wouldn't accept any "excuse". My wife started SCREAMING at the cop that she wasn't speeding! I had to calm her down! LOL! I was afraid he was gonna lock her up! (Kind of the opposite of your wife!)
I was resting in the passenger seat when it happened. Well, i know my wife, and if she said she wasn't speeding, i believe her.
I took over driving from there, and when i got to the expressway where it was 65 MPH speed limit, i kept the car right on 65. Next thing i know, i see lights behind me! I get pulled over for a burned out headlight. Then, the cop says to me "Oh....and slow it down. I clocked you at 75." Now i KNOW exactly how fast i was going, which was 65 on the nose. I told him what had happened earlier. So he said maybe our speedometer was off.
We had it checked, it was right on.
So we STILL decided to fight it. We both had to take off a day of work, and drive 2 and a half hours to the courtroom. We saw the DA there, and the cop. The cop refused to budge. The DA said that considering what it already cost us, in losing wages, and paying to have the speedometer checked, he would lower the charge to "equiptment malfunction" on our speedometer. We still had to pay a fine, but no points on my wife's license.

It's a shame they even when you "win", you lose in costs. They make it more expensive to fight it then to just pay it.
GOOD LUCK to your wife!!!

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Just got back.

Got it knocked down to 5 over.

No points. Would have been 4. Pretty good story. Gotta take my kid to a doc's visit.

Will tell story when I get back.

Another kangaroo court. (Mayberry-type)

This time worked to the advantage. I'll explain later.

She is giddy with relief.

Foster's fought the law.. and the law... LOST!!!!

That is not how normally goes, Sonny Curtis and The Crickets are going to be pissed.

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Dropped my kid off, might get interrupted, here, but I like the story.

Yet another of these little magistrate-type store-front-type itty-bitty fly-by-night "courts" they have here in PA. I think you gotta kill somebody to see a real court-room. Cop is drinking buddies with the magistrate--that type of place.

Wife gets up to use the crapper. We are in a little waiting room with about 4 other people...this will be today's docket. Cop comes in, asks the lady if he has any cases here, she points to me (and my BIG pile of maps, etc. I have made my wife bring as a "prop".) And says my wife's name. He laughs and heads into another room.

My wife comes out of the crapper, I do not mention the cop coming or the laugh (She has already been semi-freaking out enroute, forgetting shit I have told her how/why to say---tells me how she is going to approach this, I'm thinking she might get incarcerated with THAT story, but don't tell her that- see freaking out part)

ANYWAY-- Cop says her name after about 4 minutes. More to come--kid called needs pick up...

So we go into a conference room and the cop says, "Are you here about the points, is there something I said or did that you have a problem with, are you disputing the amount of speeding, yada yada yada."

I said, "The points, officer, I am her husband and am here to bring moral support." The cop says, "Tell ya what I can do... I'm willing to give you 5 over in an urban zone, that'll knock the fine down (67.50 + all the bullshit Cheesey mentioned-as existing at the this moment in time.) and it will be a zero point offense."

We are good. We are done. NOPE. Wife decides she now wants to plead that CRAP defense she had planned, dragging the accuracy of the stopwatch, her life history, etc. He can rescind this offer at any time (I would have, lol)
but he does not. Nice guy. I thanked him, interrupted my wife, we waited 5 minutes for them to recalibrate the whole fine thing and we are done.

My wife continues her stream of consciousness, tells the lady (officer of the court lady, btw) to keep the 42.50 differential "For the next time I speed." Starts telling me all about the money she won last night (in front of all these fine folk in a friggin' court, for chris-sakes) in an (illegal in PA) online poker tournament, and basically will not STFU.

I love her. She is very happy now. No 4 points. No driver improvement course. No massive increase in insurance over next 3 years.

5 over in an urban district. Find me an urban district in Wormleysburg, PA. Hell, find me friggin' Wormleysburg, and I live about 10 minutes from it, LOL.

So, the fine went from 67.50 to 17.50.

Here is the Cheesey part (I have it right here)

Emergency Medical Service 10.00
Medical Care Available 30.00
Judicial Computer Project 8.00
Access to Justice 2.00
State Fine 17.50
Municipal fine 403a 17.50
Court Cost COMM-COST 7.65
Court Cost County-TY 19.20
Commonwealth Cost HB627 7.65
Hearing Costs CTY 7.00

That is verbatum. Makes me laugh.

Edit--Forgot the "advantageous to be in Mayberry kangaroo court-part)

My wife was his only case. It was his "court day" He probably wanted to go eat donuts or whatever rather than have to sit for the hour or whatever it would have taken to have this one case tried. It is an opinion, but I bet I'm right.

LOL... glad to see that I am not the only one that has a wife that picks the wrong time to dig in and fight.. :lol:

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Don't even get me started on kangaroo courts. I am still fuming about the joke of a judge who evicted my wife and me in the middle of a college semester (thank God I am off academic probation as of last week).

She made Judge Judy look polite and dignified on the stand. Ugh.

---

Well, in fairness, I am not exactly a bastion of reasonableness in her eyes.

Since you paid for it, and since it still makes me mostly laugh about it, let me tell you what my wife already knew this morning before she walked into that courtroom...having listened to my "expert" advice in this department. This shit was serious to her this AM, my experience was not so much...

This was several years ago. I was stationed very briefly at the Pentagon as a gift while getting out. I lived in Alexandria, VA. (Home of every lobbyist-lawyer-asshole that you hear about when discussing "Inside the beltway"-types) I would commute to here in PA on weekends, planning to move here permanently in literally less than a month from this "incident"--essentially getting my DC house in order prior to settling here in bum-fuck PA.

I volunteered to do a little glorified courier duty from the puzzle palace to Ft. Indiantown Gap here in PA. The reason being I could also spend the night here. My wife had very kindly got me an Infiniti M-30 convertible on e-bay that I went to Overbrook Kansas to get. No big deal car-wise, except out here / there in bumfuck PA. (imo)

I was rolling back from my little visit to the Air Force, and was going through Lebanon, PA. This is PA dutch country, with the Amish, buggies, etc. They have a weird little intersection there, actually unique in my life's experience.. I was actually quite familiar with it through my travels.

You are allowed to make a left hand turn on red between the hours of 8AM and 4PM mon-fri and at all times on weekends. That's correct. A left hand turn on red.

It's 4:06 PM on a Friday. I'm coming up to the intersection, a tractor-trailer is making the left two vehicles in front of me. Directly in front of me on the other side of the light facing me is a Lebanon (you know) [that is how they talk, there/here] cop. A k-9 cop--that part is important.

I am almost directly under the light. It is green. The moron in the tractor-trailer didn't quite make the proper radius. He briefly stops, makes an adjustment, and gets through, but left me high and dry in the middle of the intersection, facing directly at this k-9 cop. He's petting his dog, looks up, sees a green light, and me in the middle of the intersection.

He nails me 100 yards down the road. I explain the whole deal to him, he isn't hearing it, says I cannot go through past 4 on a red, yada, yada yada.

10 dollar fine. Send it in and I am done with it. Zero points. I live in Alexandria, VA. remember... about 4 hours away.

Fuck that.

Keep in mind here, I am used to D.C.--more specifically, Fairfax County, VA. They take the judicial system serious there. Like I said, you would have to kill someone in PA to get the same type of environment you face down there when you go for a traffic beef.

By my court date I live here now. (Harrisburg, PA--about an hour away)

I prepare like I'm going to court in Fairfax County... Suit, tie, etc. Big mistake number 1. I drive "my" car--at least my "daily driver." It's a Lexus. That would be big mistake number two.

I pull up to this "courthouse", not believing what I am seeing, thinking "This cannot be right." It's a friggin' storefront-type deal, with smoked glass across it's entire face--as in-can see cars that pull into parking lot.

I walk in, cop in question is having a nice little coffee with the magistrate---(WTF is a magistrate, btw-I'm thinking) waiting on today's docket, or more specifically, Dfosterf, from Alexandria VA--the place with the human no fishing signs--(This place is close enough that many of them know about that place..instead of upsetting the tourists with something so garish as a sign, they have officers run around and tell you not to fish down on the waterfront--fucks up the ambiance)

There will be no deal for dfosterf. Dfosterf is the arrogant prick from DC driving his fancy-schmantzy Lex to court having got popped in his fancy-schmantzy- M30 a little over a month ago. This I have figured out in like 1 second once inside those smoked-glass windows.

I did have the absolute pleasure of examining the witness. I think I kind of blew my case when I--- A) asked the magistrate if I could call his dog to the stand....this made the magistrate laugh. AND 😎 referred to the officer's canine as a "seeing-eye-dog". I don't think the magistrate appreciated my tone with his nephew (OK-that part is speculation, LOL)

10 bucks.

PLUS all those court costs enumerated in wife's case, plus the one's they threw in for shits and giggles.

Best part? Back at the puzzle palace I had conveyed this whole deal to them when I got popped in the first place. Everyone was getting a major hoot out of the deal, and I was told to just send a receipt in when I paid the fine. I did, and I was already RELACDU when I did it.

I got a very nice little U.S. government check in the mail a few months later. It was chitted as "miscellaneous travel expense while on official government business".

:thumbleft: