municipal courtrooms

... are pretty interesting. The three hours that I was there today, I saw and learned:

1) case of a woman accusing some guy of breaking "no-contact" order taken by her. He had apparently called her exboss and told him lies about her which made her lose her job. Judge will call them again in 6 months to see if they been following it. In this day and age, 'no contact' has a WIDE range. You can't even contact anyone known to that person. no email, facebook, twitter, blog. no aliases either. The woman requested the judge to reiterate each and every point that the defendant MUST NOT DO.

The guy looked like a creep who even seemed unable to stand straight, with an equally loser-looking lawyer wearing a suit that fitted him maybe 60 lbs ago. the defendant wanted to speak up again and again, and the lawyer had to elbow him again and again to shush him up. The woman looked like she was straight out of jersey housewives (or whatever the show is called). She came with an entourage of 7 people, who all looked like they were coming out of some tv show.

2) cases against 2 big stores and 2 big grocery stores for either wrong labeling, or different prices showing on the scanner and the labelling, or selling higher deals than max allowed. Don't know who catches them. Does the city do its rounds, or do the customers complain? The fines were pretty high. $50 for each wrong pricing, and $100 for each wrong deal. They would add up to 5-15 such commodities.

3) you can actually be thrown into jail if you don't show up on court date, or don't pay fines. saw atleast 6 such cases. And they were in there for many other reasons too.

4) many people mentioned in observation #3 had their addresses on some highway or the other. conclusion: any apartment building on a highway - a big NO.

5) fuel stealing is on a rise. this help used to steal fuel from these farmers, from their vehicles. while the judge could punish him, for restitution, they will have to go to civil court.

6) People are stupid enough to give false names when stopped on traffic. Saw three such cases.

7) Two hottie sisters, repeat HOTTIE, were found drunk driving on the same night. One of them was in MAJOR troubles then the other. Had 6-7 different citations including driving on wrong side of the road, and providing false name. There were total 3 DWI's in the court today, all three were women. All three will need lawyers to get out of this scoop. Conclusion: maybe women dwi is rampant there, but not too many people are doing much to avoid it. Guess e'one target more on keeping the usual suspects, the men, more safe and that seem to be working.

8.) Some people can be quite entertaining even when doing video conferences from jail. One guy didn't know the name of his lawyer. Kept saying he doesn't know why he was there (lying of course). When the judge asked, 'do you atleast remember the name of the judge who sent you to jail', he replies, 'can you take some names, I might remember then'. Judge finally asked for the date of the judgement, which he remembered. So the judge will follow up now.

9) Sometimes the defendant comes, but the lawyer calls sick. sometimes the lawyer comes, and the defendant goes missing. All of them can result in court date postponement. such tactics work here too. saw one very frustrated witness stomp out of the court room. Similarly, you can also get breather if you say you want to hire a lawyer.

10) people have way more [non criminal] issues than I did driving over speed limit (thank God!). Like, not stopping for emergency vehicles or when flagged to stop. Not reporting an accident. Holding up traffic. Telling wrong names. having an open can of alcohol when caught for something else. Not having money to pay (atleast 5 people today made a deal of paying $50/month for upto one year). Many random violations fall under the bucket of 'unsafe driving', and 3 offenses in 5 years, and you are gone.

Also, gotta get my citizenship asap. even 12 hours of convicted jail time can screw you big.

11) Finally, court rooms can be entertaining, so many characters have to pass through them. I am thinking of going and sitting in for time pass sometimes.

Tracy Whitney wrote:... .

11) Finally, court rooms can be entertaining, so many characters have to pass through them. I am thinking of going and sitting in for time pass sometimes.

Whattt.. you mean to say it is more entertaining than sitting in front of a computer pretending to work and reading Rashmun's posts all day. I might give it a try

doofus_maximus wrote:

Tracy Whitney wrote:... .

11) Finally, court rooms can be entertaining, so many characters have to pass through them. I am thinking of going and sitting in for time pass sometimes.

Whattt.. you mean to say it is more entertaining than sitting in front of a computer pretending to work and reading Rashmun's posts all day. I might give it a try

Arre, do it for national synthegration, na?

Tracy Whitney wrote:... are pretty interesting. The three hours that I was there today, I saw and learned:

11) Finally, court rooms can be entertaining, so many characters have to pass through them. I am thinking of going and sitting in for time pass sometimes.

Now you know why I am "so very shmart"

So, you spent 3 hours of your life usefully - finally.

You did not tell us what you were there for, how the judge reacted to you, and what was the ruling. BTW, You can ask for a lawyer if you want...

I once stood before the judge and agreed to pay a little more so that the ticket does not show up on the record - I have only 2 tickets. Asked the judge "So, when a cop stops me next time and asks me if I had any tickets, Can I tell him that I had no ticket?" He stared at me and said "Young man...my advise is for you to keep quiet"

Note to self: I should stop cracking jokes in some serious instances and in wrong places.

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:"Young man...my advise is for you to keep quiet"

How old was the judge, your Holiness?

Hellsangel wrote:

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:"Young man...my advise is for you to keep quiet"

How old was the judge, your Holiness?

Actually, the judge was younger than me, think he was using the phrase in an informal way - like the counter woman calling someone "sweetie"