My Day in Court

A few months ago, I posted this. I would like to reiterate my sympathy for judges because I have now been to court. I had to go. There was a warrant out for my arrest.

I like to think of myself as a law-abiding citizen, though, as a recent experience with traffic school showed me, I break about 100 traffic rules a day, and I ought to be grateful for the comparatively few times in my life that I have been caught. But I do think, in general, I am a pretty responsible citizen.

Several months ago, I was in a car accident, which totaled my beloved Corolla. The accident was not my fault, but some semi-shady things seemed to be going on with the person who hit me and her insurance, and that has been a debacle.

The night of the accident, I was issued a citation for what the officer called "insufficient insurance." This meant that, although I had handed him an insurance card, it was expired. Despite my efforts to convince him that the current card was in my car, he issued me a citation, telling me that if I "went to court" I could "get it taken care of."

So, accordingly, I drove to the South Salt Lake between 5 and 14 days after the citation was issued, only to discover that the citation had not yet been posted. The clerk assured me that they would send me a notice to appear in court and, at that time, I could fax in my proof of insurance and all would be forgiven.

I never received that notice.

And, to be quite honest, I sort of forgot about it. My job is hectic, and I was battling with my insurance company and the company of the person who hit me to get myself another car. Plus, I thought the whole thing was bogus anyway, since I had been insured at the time of the accident, and I KNEW they could find that out.

Then, last week, I tried to switch insurance companies. In the process of accessing my driving record, my new insurance agent told me my license had been suspended.

"WHAT?!"

He assured me that it was probably an internal error, and headed off to the DMV for me to find out.

He came back and told me that it was not a mistake, and that I had failed to show up for the court date I didn't know I had.

I called the court, where a nice clerk explained that the last address linked to my drivers' license was my parents' house in West Jordan, which is currently being rented. At the time, I was not living in the house, but put it as my permanent address because I assumed I would always be able to get mail from there. Tee hee.

The clerk immediately set a new court date for me, and I asked her if I could still just fax my proof of insurance and be done with it. But because there was a WARRANT out for my arrest, that would not be possible.

Two days later, I drove illegally to Salt Lake and showed up in court and awaited my turn in front of the judge. Other people around me were handling traffic tickets, suspended driver's licenses, etc. There was one particularly colorful man who was both appearing in an effort to get his license reinstated and also handing out business cards for his "law business." I'm not really sure what it was, as I think I can say with pretty good confidence that this guy had not attended law school. He sauntered up to the front of the room and said, to the very nice female judge, "You're looking very lovely today, Your Honor." How she kept from rolling her eyes is beyond me. He then proceeded to tell her that he thought she should just "throw his case out," and everyone in the room heaved a sigh, including the people who only spoke Spanish.

Though I was instructed to turn my cell phone off before the judge came in, I had to sneakily turn it back on to send an e-mail to my boss to let her know I would not be able to make our 10 a.m. meeting. Fortunately, no one caught me. And I was lucky enough to be done in time to make my 11 a.m. meeting back in Provo.

AND I was lucky that I only had to pay $125 for the processing fee on the warrant that was issued for missing the court date I didn't know I had for the ticket that I should not have received in the first place. My lawyer/roommate/cousin later told me I shouldn't have had to pay anything because I was never served, but I wouldn't have wanted to argue with that judge. For me, an appearance in court was (knock on wood) a once-in-a-lifetime thing. For her, it happens every day.