Thursday, January 21, 2010
Metro columnist Dan Casey: Traffic court can be educational and entertaining
Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
dan.casey
@roanoke.com
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Dan Casey
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I was guilty, no question about it.
On Nov. 18, at 9:10 a.m., Roanoke County police Officer E.J. Chidester caught me driving 46 mph on a stretch of Grandin Road Extension where the posted speed limit is 25 mph.
Not only that, I wasn't wearing a seat belt.
So last week I went to pay those tickets in the clerk's office at the Roanoke County Courthouse in Salem and got some ticket sticker shock.
Do you know what it costs to have a lead foot these days?
The speeding citation was $166! And six points on my license, the clerk informed me. The seat belt violation added another $25.
So I thought I'd go to court Wednesday and see if the judge would have a little mercy.
I wasn't the only one.
If you haven't been to traffic court lately, you may not realize that it's one of this society's great melting pots.
The defendants are old, young, skinny, fat and every age and size in between. Their skin tones are black, white and many shades of brown.
On Wednesday, some were dressed to the nines and others wore rags that looked like castoffs from the Rescue Mission.
One lady had an elaborately curled-up do on her head that looked as if it had cost her at least $100.
The hairstyles on a couple of young men suggested that they had just climbed out of bed.
The only thing every defendant had in common was their facial expression: uniformly glum. Only the smartly dressed lawyers smiled -- they were raking in the dough.
The charges against all of us consumed nine court-docket pages, which tells you one thing: General District Court Judge Jacqueline Talevi was going to have a long day hearing sob stories and excuses.
I'll say this for Talevi: She is no Judge Judy. Some judges treat court as theater, and when they do, it can be more entertaining than a major Hollywood comedy.
In contrast, Talevi was serious and low-key. One by one, she saw each of us individually at her bench, where she conducted proceedings in hushed tones that often were difficult to discern from the spectator's gallery.
The morning started off with a couple of DUI offenders who had intelligently hired attorneys, because that charge is anything but a trifling matter.
The judge sentenced one young lady and first-time DUI offender to 90 days in jail (suspended), a $750 fine, ($500 suspended) a year's license suspension, and ordered that she attend a drunken-driving school.
One defendant who pleaded not guilty to driving 68 mph in a 45-mph zone represented himself.
He appeared to be in his late 20s, wore a modern and shiny suit, and his hairstyle was a swept-back brown pompadour with shaved temples. It ended in a pointed ducktail on the back of his neck.
He asked the prosecutor if the police officer had calibration reports for the radar gun she had measured him with.
That turned out to be a smart move, because the officer didn't.
Case dismissed.
I was among the majority in the courtroom who had decided to plead guilty.
When I got before the judge, I told her that I had been speeding, and that I understood it was serious. I did not mention that I work for this newspaper.
My speeding on Nov. 18, I told Talevi, was an uncharacteristic lapse. "I'm a good driver," I said.
I presented her my driving record that showed I haven't gotten a ticket in more than 11 years.
"If the court sees fit to consider that as part of the disposition, I would be grateful."
Talevi cut me a break (she did the same for some other normally good drivers, too). She would dismiss the charge if we attended a one-day driving class and completed it.
It'll cost $75, and I paid $61 in court costs, so I saved a few bucks. I'll spend eight hours in a class one upcoming Saturday.
One lesson from this is that justice may often be tempered with mercy.
And the other?
Slow down.
