My Missed Calling as a Lawyer
If you just want the short version, the summary is: no $40 for you, City of Seattle!! For those of you still willing to go on my storytelling journey, let’s begin…
So, back in September, I decided that taking the bus to work would be a grand idea. Well, because there are more cars than driveway space, I left my car out in front. Upon arriving back home, I had a ticket on my windshield for violating the 2 hour restricted parking. Hmmm, I had it on good authority that while it was there it was never actually enforced, but this apparently was not the case. The ticket was for $40, and I figured there was no harm in contesting it (since, you know, I did live there). As a slight aside here (but relevant to the overall story), there are parking permits you can apply for which exempt you from the time restriction, but said permits hadn’t arrived yet and wouldn’t for another month or so.
Anyway, I wait about a week to mail it back to them since I’m lazy like that, and a week later I get a notice that my pre-hearing was scheduled for over two months later (November 30th). But wait, I hear you cry! Today is not the 30th! This is true; it was scheduled for the 30th at 9:15 in the morning at which time I knew I would still be on a plane en route to SeaTac. A quick call, a request for a time change, and we ended up with today at 4:00. Fast forward two months and we’ve caught up to the present.
So today I left Microsoft around 2:00, came back home, grabbed a bus downtown, and went to the courthouse. Aside from the x-ray machine trying to eat my hat (and neither I nor the security guard saw it when we looked inside on the belt, but a few seconds later it magically came out), it was a pretty standard experience I would assume. After filling out their paperwork and explaining why my address was different than that on my driver’s license (which they were totally cool with, but apparently were required to ask about), I got to sit down with my pre-hearing magistrate. Aside #2, I had to look up what a magistrate was as they aren’t people you ever tend to hear about much.
One in her office, she read off what my ticket was, specifically what I was ticketed for being in violation of, and how they determined that I was in violation. Upon telling her that yes, she was correct on the description she gave me, there was a instant of surprise on her face that I readily and willingly admitted to it. Apparently that’s not what most people do. Upon explaining the situation and showing the photocopies of the permits that Seattle had finally sent to us, she dismissed the ticket and I was free to go. No signing anything, no handing anything to a clerk, just flat walking out the door. So, aside from the delay from ticket to pre-hearing (and had she not dismissed it and I wanted to continue to contest, which I would have, there would have been another date scheduled at some point in the future) and a hat eating machine , the whole thing was pretty uneventful/quick/easy. Not saying I really want to do the process again though.