Ever wonder how you can be the victim of vandalism and wind up having to pay twice for the slight against you? Yeah, until yesterday morning I hadn’t either. The wheels of justice certainly weren’t oiled very well. Either that or one of the teeth in the gears was missing. In hindsight it might of been better not to have been there at all, especially considering my role in all this would probably be listed as “Victim #2″ in the credits if this were a movie. But someone at the Weehawken justice complex sent the time to write up a subpoena and far be it from me to ignore something so legally binding — that kind of stupidity I’ve moved past.
Anyway, before the case I was involved in was heard there was a lot of sameness in the court proceedings. Same old dog and pony show you get at any municipal court: speeding tickets and bad driving violations amended and downgraded, a few DUI offenders getting their first slap on the wrist while staring at the billyclub that will be used for a second offense and so on. Then again, because Weehawken is the home to the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel it does widen the scope of the stories of woe by just a wee bit.
For instance, there was one man who could not speak a lick of english and who had never had a drivers license anywhere before who was in front of the judge for driving under the influence after he was arrested for barreling into a closed lane in the aforementioned tunnel. It was clear the offense was grand enough that the judge wanted to throw the book at him, but maximum penalties and other legislated restrictions kept things on somewhat of an even keel. Still, the gentleman defendant will go without driving privileges for nearly two years. Of course, that didn’t quite stop him before.
By the time my reason for giving up half a day’s pay was heard, the judge had taken three unannounced recesses and I was down to my last few grains of patience. Before the judge were two relatively young looking men from Connecticut, well groomed with lawyers at their sides — former frat boys perhaps. Their offenses all stemmed from a drunken streak of vandalization of cars, including an instance of throwing a traffic cones at a car. Wether it was moving or not at the time was not disclosed, but my guess is that it was. I’m sorry to say that for all of the effort made by the police and the prosecutors, a severe lack of witnesses wound up killing all but one charge: the cone throwing one. The judge let it be known that “justice was not served” and I have to agree. It wasn’t like I was out for blood in all of this. Hell, until 24 hours before my appearance I had no thoughts in my head of ever finding out who did this to my car, much less getting reparations for the offense.
All told I wasted half a day’s pay to receive nothing towards the replacement of my car’s wiper arm. In other words, it’s like I’m paying for the repairs twice. At least I got some satisfaction in seeing that one offense get paid for. The cost of cone throwing: $1,000. And the pain in the man’s face as he doled out the fine one Ulysses S. Grant at a time did calm my seething rage.
There have been times when I’ve been before a court as a defendant and have wound up paying less in both time and money, but in the end it’s just the system at work. I can be content that it gave me some weblog fodder and just pray I don’t get any more subpoenas in the mail for some time to come. Maybe giving my car a good coat of Drunk-B-GoneTM might keep this all from happening again.
Tags: Personal