I have submitted a few stories about my father-in-law, including this one. Some years ago, we were sitting on our back porch having a cookout and talking. My husband mentioned that I had gotten my first ever speeding ticket at the ripe ol’ age of twenty-seven. My father-in-law looked surprised.

Father-In-Law: “Really, [My Name]? You’re usually such a good driver.”

Me: “Well, they just changed the speed limit on the road from fifty-five to thirty-five last week. I forgot and they clocked me doing fifty-seven. It’s my fault for not paying attention. I am not sure how this is going to work in court since I have never had a speeding ticket before.”

Husband: “I told her she should plead not guilty.” 

Me: “But that would be a lie. I am guilty. While it wasn’t on purpose, I was still breaking the law.”

Father-In-Law: “No, I agree. Tell the truth. Don’t lie; explain it. The judge might be in a good mood and give you a reduced fine.”

Husband: “Hey, Dad, tell her about your speeding ticket in Georgia.”

[Father-In-Law] told us about how he was going down a highway some years ago in Georgia when an officer pulled him over and gave him a ticket. [Father-In-Law] said he didn’t think he was going over the speed limit but it was kind of fascinating because the officer had a radar gun. This was in the 1980s when these were kind of new in rural areas. [Father-In-Law] had never seen one, and the officer was kind of proud of it and more than happy to show it off to my father-in-law.

When they went to court, [Father-In-Law] started noticing something interesting. The first five people called up were all clocked at sixty-seven mph by that cop on the same road on the same day.  

When they called [Father-In-Law] up:

Father-In-Law: “Your honor, I mean no disrespect, but before I enter a plea, I am asserting my right to see the evidence. I want to see this officer’s proof of training on this piece of equipment, as well as the paperwork of the last time it was calibrated.”

The judge was less than pleased.

Judge: “What makes you think you can demand any of that?!”

Father-In-Law: “Since none of you have noticed, the five defendants before me were all clocked doing sixty-seven. And so was I. I am curious about the cases after me. What were they clocked at?”

The judge immediately calmed down and asked the officer to look at his ticket book. The officer flipped through his book and, with amazement, proclaimed that all the tickets that day were for sixty-seven mph.

Judge: “I never noticed.” 

The judge sat back for a moment.

Judge: “I’ve hated those newfangled things since the day I saw them. I never thought they could be trusted. I’m glad I am retiring soon. Case dismissed.”

He then told his secretary that all tickets that day were dismissed and asked her to see if someone could catch the five previous defendants before they left the building. The officer did shake [Father-In-Law]’s hand, so there were no hard feelings.

As for me, I did plead guilty. The judge said I was the first person who ever plead guilty in front of him. He told me that as long as I kept my nose clean and had no more tickets for at least a year, I was good to go. I haven’t had a speeding ticket since and don’t plan to.

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When I was fresh out of college, I got called up for jury duty. It was actually a pretty fascinating experience and I highly recommend it. Some of the people I served with, though, were… interesting.

We’d agreed on most of the fourteen or so criminal charges in the case, including two of the three counts of child endangerment. Now, we were discussing the final of those. One of the criteria we were told for being guilty of this particular charge was that the child had to feel endangered. The child in this case was a baby. All but one of us concluded that, due to the particular circumstances, the baby had no idea what was going on and thus didn’t feel endangered and thus the person wasn’t guilty of this particular charge.

The holdout was a woman from the Caribbean — I forget where precisely. I point this out only to explain the sentence structure of her argument since English was her second language or perhaps even third. This is how the argument went, verbatim.

Woman: “When I was in my country, one day, I try to feed my baby. He wouldn’t take the breast! Wouldn’t take the breast!” *Pauses* “Lightning come down, set fire to the house!”

The Rest Of Us: “…”

Woman: “…”

The Rest Of Us: “…”

Me: *Grasping at straws* “Um…okay, so… you’re saying that babies have some kind of sixth sense about what is going on around them, so this baby knew that the man was threatening him even though the baby’s mother wasn’t really worried about the guy?”

Woman: “YES! Babies know!”

Everyone else proclaimed their disbelief.

Me: “Okay, why don’t we move on to the other charges and come back to this one later?”

Eventually, we were able to convince her that, in this case, lightning not come down, not set fire to the house, as far as this baby was concerned.

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While I am trying to get out of a parking lot, a young man gets upset that I have gotten “too close” to his car. He sucker-punches me in the face through the open window of my car. I have a good description of the suspect, a good vehicle description, and the license plate number of the vehicle he was in. There are multiple witnesses and even surveillance video of the incident. The police are duly called and I am given a case number and told a detective will be contacting me.

A week goes by without any information, so I call the police department’s non-emergency number and ask about the case, using the case number provided.

Receptionist: “The case hasn’t actually been recorded yet because it’s only been a week. Call back next week.”

I call back the next week and learn that the report has been filed, and I am (eventually) put in touch with the appropriate office for investigating assaults. I speak to a detective.

Detective #1: “We haven’t had a chance to look at the case yet. Please call us back later.”

I wait a week and call the detective office directly, with the case number.

Detective #2: “You’ll have to talk to our lead detective, [Lead Detective]. But he’s in court all week, so you’ll have to call back next week.”

We are now a month past the date I was assaulted, and no one from the police department has apparently even looked at the report since it was eventually filed. I call back and talk to the lead detective.

Lead Detective: “We don’t investigate misdemeanor assault.”

Me: *Shocked* “Why not?”

Lead Detective: “It’s too hard to get a conviction for stuff like that, so it’s not worth our time.”

Me: *Peeved* “I have five witnesses, security camera footage, a description of the attacker and his vehicle, and his license plate number. I absolutely want to press charges against the idiot who slugged me.”

[Lead Detective] is silent for a couple of seconds.

Lead Detective: “You… you have the license plate number?”

Me: “Absolutely! [Number]. It should be in the police report, too, because I gave it to the responding officer.”

There’s another brief pause.

Lead Detective: “What was that case number again?”

Me: “[Case number].”

Lead Detective: *Furiously typing* “Can you give me a description of the attacker?”

I give him the description from my notes.

Lead Detective: “Huh! I think I know who this person is. Can you come to the station and do a photo line-up?”

Me: “Sure.”

A week later — now FIVE weeks after the assault — I pick the suspect out of the photo array, and it turns out to be the guy [Lead Detective] was thinking of. I am escorted to the prosecutor’s office where I swear out an official complaint, and I am told a warrant will be issued for the young man’s arrest. I am asked if I am ready to testify at trial, and I emphatically agree.

EIGHT MONTHS LATER, the young man who attacked me gets arrested for something completely unrelated and is charged with assault due to the warrant. I am notified by mail of the court date for this case… scheduled for five months later.

More than a year after the actual assault, I finally stand up in court, identify the young man who attacked me to the judge, and describe what happened. [Lead Detective] actually shows up — surprising me — and tells the judge the surveillance video corroborates my story. The judge wants to see the video, but it turns out that the police video system is not compatible with the court’s video system, and the video won’t play. (Seriously?)

The suspect’s defense attorney is diligent and tries hard but keeps getting undercut by her client’s perpetually-changing story.

Suspect: “It wasn’t me.” “The car was being borrowed by my mom, and it wasn’t there. My mom took the car to work.” “Someone else was in the car.” “I was in the car, but in the front seat. I never got out of the car.” “I got out of the car, but I was not the guy who hit [My Name]; that was another guy… who was riding with us… and I don’t know who he was.”

The judge didn’t buy any of it, and the suspect was convicted. He was sentenced to ninety days in jail and given credit for time served for the OTHER criminal case he was involved with, and we went our separate ways having learned our lessons.

I’m not sure what the suspect learned, but I learned that anything short of a felony is fair game in [Town]. Even when given the suspect description, vehicle description, license plate number, surveillance video, and multiple witnesses, the police can’t be bothered to even look for people committing crimes unless those crimes are felonies.

I have struggled with drug addiction for most of my life. About five years ago, my wife filed for divorce and was awarded full custody of our son. This is all right and proper, as I was in no condition to be a father at that time.

The road to recovery has been long, but I have been working the program and have now been clean for several years. I have had no formal custody of my son, though I get visitation at my ex-wife’s discretion. I have tried to be a good and stable father to my son in the last few years.

However, my ex has not wanted to allow for the possibility that I have become well. In fact, she has begun jerking me around with visitation, even planning on removing my son from me for a period of several months so she can take a long vacation with her new family.

Not willing to let this slide, I immediately file for joint custody. The court case goes as expected, my ex badmouthing my former drug abuse and attempting to paint me as still an addict and a threat to our son. Again, I am totally not. I have been clean for years, I’m employed, and I own my own home now.

My ex is so self-deluded and confident that I backslid that she loudly demands, in front of the judge:

Ex: “I demand that he provide a letter from the local president of [drug counseling program] stating that he has attended every meeting for the last several years.”

I smile at the judge.

Me: “Not only is that not a problem, your honor, but I can provide that document today.”

Judge: “How this is possible? Did you already think to bring that with you?”

Me: “No, your honor, but, you see, I am the president of our local chapter.”

I wish you could see the look on my ex’s face. I got joint custody.

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I have a colleague who was selected for jury service. He reckons the case will be interesting, as it relates to quite a high-profile incident that was in all the local papers. On his first day of the trial, he is in court most of the day, coming into work in the late afternoon for a few hours. My other colleague is full of questions, but of course, he won’t answer them because he isn’t supposed to discuss the case. Throughout the week, he falls into the same routine: court in the morning and work in the afternoon. On Thursday, the penultimate day of the trial, he comes in.

Colleague: “The verdict will be tomorrow, and then I’ll be free to discuss everything and answer all your questions.”

On Friday, our colleague arrives at work a lot earlier than anticipated.

Colleague: “Well, that was unexpected!”

It turned out that on Thursday afternoon, before dismissing the court for the day, the judge had reminded the jury that Friday would be their big day, and that until then it would be PARTICULARLY important not to discuss the case with anyone — not colleagues, not friends, not even other jurors.

One of the other jurors had been shopping in town that evening, saw the defendant, and in spite of being told not to discuss the case, decided to discuss the case with him, in full view of everyone in the shop! Word got back to the judge, who, on Friday morning, went ballistic. He declared a mistrial, held both the defendant and juror in contempt, and explained that now there would have to be a new trial with a new jury.

My colleague couldn’t believe how stupid and careless the juror had been, and was gobsmacked by how much time and effort had now gone to waste, all because the defendant and juror decided to have a chat in a shop.

The defendant was tried again six months later. The juror who’d breached protocol had charges brought against him. My colleague never got to see the new trial as he was no longer eligible for jury service.