This is so wickedly wrong at the core that someone (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, ?) needs to expose and smash these cash generating schemes being perpetrated by our “representatives” at every level of government.
We The People are NOT the ATMs of government! We The People should NOT be held accountable for the iniquities of those we put in office to represent us.
Wake Up America!
Two hundred seventy-five bucks to fight a $15 ticket? Welcome to Massachusetts—and a properly lousy day for Vincent Gillespie (pictured). Back in July 2005, Gillespie received a parking ticket while he was walking to a parking-enforcement office to fight a ticket for the same infraction. After getting the duplicate citation thrown out, he wanted to argue the original ticket in a court, with the cop who wrote it present. The state told him to write a check for $275 in court fees. Gillespie wrote a check to a lawyer instead, and they filed suit against the state of Massachusetts.
The practice of charging citizens to fight traffic and parking tickets has become more widespread in the U.S. during the financial hardships of the past several years. But Massachusetts differs from most other states in that it won’t refund the fees even if the ticket is dismissed. Here’s how it works: In most Massachusetts municipalities, a challenge is first heard by a hearing officer, whose instruction is to presume that the information written on the ticket is accurate. If citizens want a real judge or the officer who wrote the ticket to be required to show up, or actual rules of evidence to apply, they have to go to district court—the same venue that’s used for serious, high-cost civil legal matters. And depending on the municipality, going to district court can cost as much as $275 just to get in the door to argue your case.
Gillespie’s was one of two cases the commonwealth’s Supreme Judicial Court heard this year about the legality of charging fees to fight tickets. He and Ralph Sullivan, who filed the other, separate lawsuit, argued that the fees violate laws that prohibit the government from charging people to defend themselves in court. The state of Massachusetts countered by saying that the fees are a justifiable necessity: Thousands of people appeal parking and traffic tickets, and for the state to deal with rising administrative costs, it has to charge. The state also says that the costs will deter frivolous challenges to tickets, which bog down the courts. And because parking and traffic tickets aren’t considered criminal issues, Massachusetts' policy evades the traditional prohibition on charging people to defend themselves in court. In both instances, the court rejected the lawsuits, siding with the state in saying that the policies are within the bounds of the law.
For many, what is most worrying about Massachusetts’s current system is that the high fees to challenge a ticket don’t merely seem unjust in a principled sense, it’s that the guarantee of losing money no matter the outcome deters innocent folk from legitimately fighting tickets that were incorrectly issued. Massachusetts drivers don’t have a lot of recourse to these two decisions. One option would be to lobby for the state legislature to change the laws. The other is to take the state to federal court, arguing that this practice is unconstitutional. While no action has been taken yet, we’ve heard that just such a lawsuit could be brewing.
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