In Court today

I had a court case today in the General Sessions department. All kinds of cases are heard in this court room . Anything from traffic court , domestic violence to possesion. Anything that can't be handled in this court room is then handed over to the Grand Jury for consideration. So I get to the court room 30 minutes early thinking that I'd get a good seat because I figured we'd be there awhile. I always like to sit close to the front because in my family going to court is almost like going to watch someone in your family play football ( I have a brother who is Assistant DA , one who is a sheiriff and one who is a lawyer and yet another who is a city policeman in the next town over). So I get to see my family shine when I'm in court. It helps make sitting there for four hours a little easier to bear.

At any rate the court room was full when I got there and I along with about 100 others had to stand out in the hall for a few minutes. Finally I got a seat because my lawyer brother found one and came out and got me. When the judge approached the bench he demanded that all the people out in the hall be croweded into the court room. I thought OMG how does he expect us all to get in there. So we were crammed in there like crazy and he announced that as soon as he was through with his speech the ones who were standing coudl go back out and wait in the lobby and there would be an officer call for them.

The reason he wanted everyone in there though was to announce that today and today only that he was dropping the fines on less serious and less violent offenses to half and donating this to the "spirit of santa" program which buys gifts for Kids who will have no Christmas. For example the fine for running a stop sign is normally $162.50 but today he would drop it to $75.00 and it would not effect your driving record and you'd make the $75.00 donation to that charity. He had the founder of that program sitting there to take the money.

I thought this was really great that he was doing this. I saw alot of cases come through though that were much to offensive for him to dismiss upon a donation . Those he handled in the normal manner. He set the amount of each donation as I said based on half of what the fine would normally be.

I had never seen this done before and I guess it just kind of floored me that he would do this. I think it's a great thing to do as long as the offender is paying someone.


My court case has been set for trial after the first of the year. I did'nt do anything wrong I'm the one plantiff.

That's a fantastic idea! I hope it catches on everywhere!

Interesting, but also risky legally I would have thought. This sets a precedent for anyone in theat state in the future to plead for a lesser fine on the same grounds.
I like the idea of donating to charities though.
Interesting post, thank you.

I don't think that would fly though; this was the judges own idea, his choice...I don't think people get to request anything.

He did'nt make anyone take this option. It was the choice of the offender if he or she wanted to. Most of the ones that has this option were traffic violaters though. There were a few that chose to take their chances and fight it out. There was this one guy that was charged with failure to remain control of a moving vehicle and he was like" how can you control a vehicle if it has no brakes?' I almsot LOL incourt at that one but he did'nt want to pay anything at all to chairity or otherwise. He rammed someone inthe rear end and he wanted to walk for it.

that was really nice

Oh yeah my brother is a hard a** too. He was really mean a couple of times today.

Technically, if I presented in that court with a traffic offence, I can argue my case that I should only have to pay half of the fine.
I can do that by presenting the legal precedent - showing in law where someone else only had to pay half, and argue that it's only fair that that apply to me too.
I agree it's a long shot but I'm sure someone will try it in the future. I'm sure that's why this judge only agreed to do it for lesser infringements.

Actually if it's a first offense it's usually dismissed on payment of half and does'nt effect your license anyway , at least it is here most of the time.