These stories about judges getting pissed at frivolous tickets makes me wonder: Is there any sort of feedback loop between officers writing tickets, and the tickets being thrown out of court? Is there some mechanism whereby, if 90% of the tickets Officer Jerkwad writes get thrown out by judges, that information gets back to a supervisor of some sort who can try to straighten him out?
If I were a judge and saw this, I do hope it would be in my powers to summon officer’s supervisor to my courtroom and give him a chewing out with a threat of contempt for the officer wasting the court’s time.
Remember a few years ago, when the white Florida officer pulled over the black off-duty officer, and much altercation ensued with the black officer getting pepper sprayed? The reason the guy was pulled over was the county of issue of the plate was obscured by the license plate frame, and the officer knew from previous court appearances that judges regarded this as bullshit and were throwing his tickets out. If some judge had spanked him maybe it wouldn’t have happened (or if, as the black officer claimed, he was pulled over for DWB which frankly is what the reason sounds like, I’m sure some other pretext would have been found.)
Wow. I have to say that’s an impressive act.
I once got a ticket for doing 60 in a 50 zone. The speed was artificially lowered by the local jurisdiction just to troll for money. I pointed out the speed change to the Judge and said as much. He didn’t look up and maybe I’m mis-remembering what he said but as I remember it he agreed with me on some level. I still had to pay court costs.