When I first moved to SF and didn't care/know any better, I amassed about $1200 worth of parking tickets and back fees. There was an amnesty work furlough option given at the time, so I took it. Some ridiculous thing like 80+ hours of community service.
Well, as you might have guessed, I did none of it by the time my 3-month return-court date was up. I show up for court on time at 3:30PM, but there's no judge. Half an hour goes by, and people start leaving. The paperwork says 3:30-5, so I stick around. At something like 4:40PM, the bailiff opens the doors and announces that the judge finally made it in, he's in a ROTTEN mood, and they're going to speed through the cases as fast as possible.
Everyone with only a single misdemeanor offense is instantly dismissed.
I stick around, b/c mine isn't really under that category.
The judge starts calling cases to the bench, giving everyone free passes, some with harsher offenses are given reduced fines, most of the work furlough cases are let go, even ones who did only some of their hours. Most of those were only 20-30 hour work furloughs, though. And they did at least
HALF of their community service. I had completed
NONE.
The judge calls my name. I'm shitting bricks, b/c he is clearly not in a mood to deal with any bullshit, and here I am with absolutely NO work done on my CS. He looks at my case. Looks up at me and says "you haven't done
any of your hours?"
"No, your honor." (I was waiting for the contempt charge or a tasering at this point.)
He looks down at the paper.
Looks up at me.
Looks at the clock.
"Get the hell out of here. You're dismissed. You better
pray I don't ever see you in my court again."
The bailiff, myself and the remainder of the courtroom looked like this:
I ran for my life and never missed another parking ticket payment since.
arty
