Posted on 05/28/2011 3:04:24 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
George Springer is at his wit's end. He has to prove that two tickets written 24 years ago are not his.
"The county is making me prove that this was not me," Springer said.
Springer got a letter from the Department of Safety telling him his driver's license was being suspended. The state recently discovered some old traffic charges - one was for speeding - had never shown up on his record.
Springer told Channel 4 the tickets aren't his. He said he's never owned either of the cars listed on the citations and has never lived at the addresses listed.
The Hickman County Circuit Court Clerk said she can't find copies of the 24-year-old tickets. However, a hand-written docket book from 1987 lists Springer's name. It shows the charges were retired to the state, meaning Springer didn't show up in court.
The clerk said she doesn't have the authority to dismiss the old charge. To do that, Springer has to go to court to plead his case before a judge. "Now I have to go before a judge in two weeks to prove I'm not this person, which is almost impossible," Springer said.
To put the date in perspective, 1987 was the year two new television shows premiered: "Star Trek: The Next Generation," and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
The court clerk said a lot of people make the same claim as Springer -- that they're innocent.
"I'm sure they hear that a million times a day, but it's not me," Springer said.
Springer said it would be funny, but it's not. He said trying to prove his innocence on a charge nearly a quarter of a century old has been expensive, time-consuming, and stressful.
"It's not funny; it's crazy," Springer said.
A lady friend of mine is an attorney here in Nashville. She told me an alarming story about how, since the economic downturn this is happening very frequently.
She believes the counties and the state have either hired folks or assigned current employees to “dug up old, unpaid fines” and have them reinstated.
She has over 50 current clients who have hired her to defend them for similar claims.
No copies of the tickets? Just a notation in a docket book? This should be easy to get tossed.
They don’t give a damn if you’re the right George Springer.
Ever search names and find there could hundreds of the same name?
It’s amazing.
Statute of limitations for class d traffic misdemeanors should put this BS to rest quick... Going to cost a lot of coin for old goobermint fisaco especially if this guy files a law suit.
Felonies yes .....
25 years later, no copies of the citations etc ??? .... No.
If his drivers license records go back that far and no record shows he lived at that address ever.... case that should have never been pursued is kaput IMO.
They probably don’t hire them, as much as they just turn over the records to a bill collector who tries to pin the fine on people who won’t fight and gets a cut of the take. When America gave up manufacturing as our bread and butter, this is what we became—a nation of jackals who just prey on each other, fighting for the last scraps.
I was once arrested for driving on a suspended license that wasn’t. It was easy enough to clear up but it cost me a night in jail.
I had actually renewed my license during the time when it was supposedly suspended. I showed the new license to the judge and he dropped the charges.
Sue them!
Teach them this is NOT a revenue stream!
I'm sure the local cop was perfectly fine with that. Whats a matter with you?
I was innocent when it happened to me, and luckily for me the Judge agreed there was “reasonable doubt”, and dismissed the charges against me.
“H” the car was a Pontiac like mine, but different year, four door instead of two door, different color, and in a town nearby that I’d never been to.
I told the Judge perhaps the license was “xxX blah blah blah” instead of “xxx blah blah blah” like mine, and he said “Reasonable Doubt”, and dismissed the charges.
I was lucky. I remember thinking I was going to have to pay for something, because HOW does one prove something like that?
Exactly my position on blogpimps.
The cop was fine. He called it in when he stopped me for speeding (I was) and it said it was suspended. He went by the book.
In Traffic court there are no Constitutional guarantees.
You are guilty until you prove yourself innocent.
If the cop says you did it, your denial doesn’t count for squat.
I guess there is no Statute of limitations in Traffic Court.
Yep, it is. And a Swat Team in Tucson kicks in the door of an X-Marine and fires 71 round at him and 22 connect. He is dead, Swat team looks very foolish. They are still trying to figure out how to cover that one over.
A night in jail seems a little harsh for a suspended license. But maybe that’s just me...
Question?
Why do small government conservatives, you know, the liberty loving limited government types support the whole system that surrounds owning and operating a motor vehicle? I can only assume that voters support it because we have the government we want right? I know that many Freepers support the system because of the many many arguments surrounding the issues of seat belt laws, helmet laws, checkpoints etc.
So how can you be a freedom loving, small government conservative on the one hand, and support the greatest form of tyranny that can be experienced by an American; Owning and operating a motor vehicle?
In this country, instead of training people to be competent drivers, we build a system of regulations and citations that are geared for incompetent boobs who cannot tie their own shoe laces without a youtube how-to video.
Oh it reminds me of down town city parking cabals. Where you create an impossible parking situation, then hand out citations by the handful to violators. Same thing here. We don’t want the roads filled with competent self sufficient drivers. Rather, we prefer the roads filled with barely competent drivers, saddled with thousands of regulations designed to take the place of competent operation of a motor vehicle. Drivers are trained to pass a written test (it’s all about complying with rules) but drivers are never trained how to operate the vehicle when things go wrong. Nobody is trained by driving 90 mph across stop sticks and safely bringing the vehicle to a stop without rolling it. Pilots on the other hand are put through training where the aircraft is put into an odd attitude and failure configuration, then expected to recover. American drivers are competent on clear sunny days, dry pavement, fully inflated tires and no more than 70 mph, as long as they don’t really have to steer.
So why do we choose tyranny and control over self sufficiency and competence? I have no idea. I guess it’s just the American way. The Fing village won’t work unless everybody is forced to rely on big brother to fix what we are too willfully incompetent to avoid.
But lets face it. Traffic regs are just a fun and exciting way to make a mockery of the 4th amendment, and employ otherwise unemployable law school graduates masquerading as Da’s and judges anyway.
Standard procedure.
That didn’t make much sense.
I don’t doubt that a bit. They have lots of policies, eliminates the necessity of rational thought. We have policies, too.
Well then I guess it's legit!
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