...And now, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury...

By this time, all nervousness by this time had vanished. I looked across the aisle at the thin, hawk-nosed attorney opposing me. I thought about his grey suit, which flowed loosely as he moved around the worn table in the dimly lit room. I felt a little underdressed in my slacks and starched white button-down with no tie. I wondered if it would have an effect on the decision either way. Am I trying to convince someone to take my word, or can I just trust justice to be served without bias?

I was as prepared as I needed to be--I had a printed out copy of my blog entry about red lights--mostly because I forget which is which when trying to make a point about Type I and Type II errors, and it really loses its punch when you fumble around with confusing the two. That was kind of the point I needed to make so I didn't want to screw it up. I also kind of liked bringing in defamatory comments about the backward hicks of the city--it felt naughty.

Additionally, I had a copy of a recent article in the newspaper that exposed the city of Denton for having extremely short light cycle times, which were found to be faulty and were scheduled to be lengthened. Lastly, I had a fuzzy printout from a videocamera which, at least in my mind, pretty clearly shows my car in the intersection before the light turns red. I showed it to several other people and they agreed with me, so I felt pretty good about things. My strategy was to try to detect if the argument was at all winnable. I hadn't gotten my hopes up, though.

Alas, we will never know--the only place where the scene described above will be played out is in my mind....

My original page of notes somehow became misplaced, and I asked Fran to call the company to "confirm" my hearing time (ie. figure out what time it was actually scheduled for on Tuesday). When she called, the girl informed her that the fine was "paid".

Fran called me and asked "Are you sure you haven't paid this?" Yes I'm sure. "Well, that's what the girl said--It's paid, and you don't have to show up tomorrow at 9:00 as you had scheduled." I have to say that I was really dreading the drive to the courthouse, because it is about forty miles from my home, and it is flanked by low-speed zones. Getting there in the middle of rush hour traffic, and then parking, etc. was going to be terrible.

On the other hand, I didn't want to miss my appointment because of something stupid like a clerk making a typo on the computer, so I called back. Then the truth came out.

It turns out that the city police had decided to dismiss any challenged fines from the intersection where my alleged offense occured. It had actually been "dismissed", not "paid." Maybe I'm being a little overanalytical, but in my mind there's a difference. Also,in this case, it was only dismissed if contested.

I have to tell you that, last week after I got my complaints about this nonsense out of my system, I really wanted to just send my money in to take care of it without having to go to court. I wasn't in the mood to get embarrassed publicly by losing or being humiliated in some way, and I just didn't trust things to work out as they should. I remember a friend of mine, an attorney, who told me of this phenomenon--this is why so many people settle out of court. They fear being judged, and would rather take the certainty of a settlement.

In fact, I have had the opportunity to spend some time in courthouses and in the preparation of legal documents (in my former life as the VP of a small company). Maybe this is where I honed my sharp distrust of the legal system.

So, I suppose I "won". Thanks for the encouragement not to cave in, which was still a temptation even yesterday. I never really had the satisfaction of making my point to someone about the irresponsibility of not properly reviewing things before inconveniencing me, the fact that this was attested to by some illegibly-signatured officer, and how this whole setup is a slippery slope of inconvenience and ambiguity. The trick was going to be explaining it while on the defensive for my own alleged transgression, and I wasn't sure I could walk that line without my blood pressure getting raised. I would have been pretty annoyed at making the trip to the courthouse just to learn that it had been dismissed. I think it was pretty sorry of them to not notify me of the decision beforehand.

Is it a victory that I was quieted, saved the expense of the fine, but never got to express my disgust or make my point? I think I should just be happy and shut up.