The Scene: Mayor's Court, Milford, OH.

June 21, 2006

Once again, I stand convicted of a minor misdemeanor, per the nuttiness on June 2...

Still, sometimes a half a loaf is better than the whole thing.

Here's the blow-by-blow....

After my altercation with the local gendarmes last week I spoke to a couple of lawyers. They told me to expect conviction, but the one lawyer said I might be able to work something out with the prosecutor if I wanted to give that a try. I did call the prosecutor on Monday and he said he'd look at the situation and talk to me in court. Yesterday I started practicing my defense speeches.

Last night I had copies made of my crime scene photographs in case I ended up pleading not guilty and needed them to defend myself.

Today at work we had a little contest to pick a necktie for the court date.

The choices were the "1970s narrow nerd tie" and the "1990s monkey environmentalist tie."

One of my most stalwart friends pointed out I needed to pick my battles better, and not get distracted by this one. She reminded me that my stand against the war in Iraq was where I ought to be putting my energies.

I arrived at the court a little early so I got to watch the room fill up with my fellow miscreants. We were a motley crew. Out of several dozen people, it turned out I was the only non-lawyer wearing a tie, as had been predicted by a couple of people in our lunch group.

The session began with a thorough explanation of the procedure delivered by the prosecutor. After that, everyone intending to plead "not guilty" was asked to come forward for their court date to be set. About a quarter of the crowd went forward and stood in line, waiting to talk to the prosecutor. I waited until the line was all but gone, and went up to introduce myself to the prosecutor. He recognized my name and recalled our conversation and said I should go back to my seat and wait for my name to come up. His demeanor was not at all unpleasant so I figured things were looking up, so I went back to my seat.

Well, I'm here to tell you Mayor's Court is a major trip. I think when and if I ever retire from paid work I may try to sit in Mayor's Court at least once per month. One group of people were great friends and very happy to see each other. These people turned out to be people who had been previously convicted of something and given fines they could not pay. They were coming in every week and signing in, and telling the magistrate they couldn't pay again this week.

After the not guilty folks and no money folks were taken care of, the guilty, no contest, and don't know what they are doing types got their turns. We were called in alphabetical order. It turns out most lawbreakers names begin with the letters b, c, and d. About 75% of us came from those three letters, and most of us were young men with drug and alcohol charges. Our next largest group was women with fighting and disorderly conduct charges. After those two groups, we had the speeders and the people cited for derelict cars. One of our speeders was an older woman with a lot to say about the unfairness of her ticket, given the bad driving by so many others. She complained loud and long before getting her guilty conviction, after which she could be heard loudly complaining to the court clerk out in the hallway. Even so, the court was a lot more fair and open to consideration than I'd been given to expect. The judge dismissed several cases, some very squirrely, but guilty or not there didn't seem to be any rancor present at all.

Finally, about 5:45, we got to the letter "O." Before they called my name the prosecutor said he needed a minute, and he sat looking at my paper work. When he was ready they called my name and I went up to the podium. Before I said anything the prosecutor said he had spoken with the citing officer and based that conversation and on my conversation with him earlier, he was willing to drop the "entering a safety zone" charge ($150 fine), if I would enter a guilty plea for the lesser charge of passing on the left ($50 fine). This was not the outcome I'd been hoping for, but it was an improvement, so I was favorably disposed toward the deal. I said that seemed reasonable and asked if I could plead "no contest" instead, but the prosecutor said no, saying he didn't want to take a chance on me appealing the conviction. I had earlier said I was hoping for a "no points" solution, but I was not ready to push that. On the no contest thing, I probably could have argued the point, and maybe should have, but I didn't think quickly enough for that.

Anyway, I said OK and the prosecutor told the magistrate he recommended the minimum fine. The magistrate charged me $50 for the ticket and $60 for court costs. The prosecutor said he thought I'd learned a "life lesson" and I agreed, saying I'd learned something both on the road and in the court. As I left I got a sense the other people still in the room were leery of me because I'd clearly had contact with the prosecutor outside of court and seemed to have gotten a pretty good deal.

Out in the hall, as we waited to pay our fines, my fellow convicts and I compared charges and outcomes. They were alcohol, drug, and disorderlies, and they asked what I had done. I just gave them the short version, saying I had talked back to a cop. Naturally, they thought that was great.

I figure I paid $110 to contribute to the training of a new cop and get instruction on being more circumspect when dealing with small town police. I also got to spend some time seeing a well-managed mayor's court. The biggest downside is having another two points on my license. That kicks me up to six, which means I can't become an Ohio motorcycle driving instructor for at least five years. Without the points, I'd have been eligible in just over three years. So it goes.

So, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

End of Story,

Ray