Evil People

 I'm reminded of a time I went to court to protest a speeding ticket. I was in a line of traffic 5 mph over the speed limit in Milford, Delaware. The road leading out of the town was a known speed trap. The cops were using a new hand-held radar gun and I was singled out. The cop wrote me up for 45 in a 40, but wrote 55 in the margin.

In the court I had to face a tribunal of three lawyers. The head lawyer asked me why I was protesting. I said I don't like lying cops. He then said, "The officer was doing you a favor; he wrote 55 in the margin." I said I was doing 45 in a line of traffic, and that I knew that road was a speed trap. He then said, "I know that officer and he's very fair." I said, "Yes but you wouldn't have gotten a ticket at all because they don't give them to lawyers." The lawyer angrily threw his pen down on the table and snapped: "I'm sorry you have a problem with our system of justice!" I said, "I don't have a problem with your system of justice; I have a problem with lying cops!"

 

So I went before the judge and he upheld the ticket for 45 mph, but because I took it to court, I had to pay another $30 on top of the fine.

 

Bob Dylan wrote a song called 'Hurricane.' Part of it goes...

 

Now all criminals in their coats and their ties

Are free to drink martinis and watch the sun rise

While Ruben sits like Buddha in a ten-foot cell

An innocent man in a living hell.

 

The song was about a true story where New Jersey cops pinned a murder on a man that they knew was innocent. Ruben Carter was a black man and a boxer, and spent many years in prison before a group investigated and took it to court. He was set free and the cop who sent him to prison got away with it.