Southern City Traffic Court begins promptly at 8:30 in the morning.
Actually, that's a lie: Southern City Traffic Court begins theoretically at 8:30 in the morning, and begins promptly at whatever time the judge feels like showing up. This is such a long-standing Southern City tradition, I have no doubt it is scribed into the city charter, alongside the regulations on slave quarters.
Today's traffic court session was no different. The judge showed up late, a thing for which this particular judge is well-known. The difference is that this time she hurried through the docket to make up for it. The result of this was: I had four cases scheduled for 9:00 am, and when I walked into the courtroom at right around the strike of 9:01, I found the Honorable Court in the tail end of a long and drawn-out accident case, and all of my tickets had been long since been disposed of. Three were FTAs, and the one party who did show up had her case dismissed due to "lack of prosecution". Which means, of course, that it goes in the file as being my fault. William Ewart Gladstone famously said that justice delayed is justice denied. He was right, though I'm pretty sure this isn't what he had in mind.
I put on my uniform and drove through the rain on my day off to come to court as I am required to, and since I was only there five minutes, I don't even get to put it on my timesheet and get paid for it. My only recompense is the ability to complain about it. And what's a blog for, if not to whinge about things nobody else cares about?
Ofc. Krupke at 6:23 PM
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