Inside the municipal court cash machine

[TexasTowelie]

Somewhere in between burying her mother and taking care of her sick father in Maryland, Neptune resident Karen Marsh forgot to renew the licenses for her two rescue poodles.

Instead of paying the $17-per-dog renewal fee, she was compelled to spend a March day in municipal court and then pay $122 in fines and fees. The total would have been $178, but the judge suspended one of the fines in exchange for a guilty plea.

Marsh became prey to a system that increasingly treats hundreds of thousands of residents each year as human ATMs.

Many cash-strapped municipalities have turned to the law for new revenue, especially in small shore towns where municipal court revenues have nearly doubled in the last five years, an Asbury Park Press investigation found.

Read more: http://www.app.com/longform/news/investigations/watchdog/investigations/2016/11/27/exclusive-inside-municipal-court-cash-machine/91233216/

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. Nearly 4.6 million cases equal to two-thirds of the state's adult population moved through the s

Nearly 4.6 million cases — equal to two-thirds of the state's adult population — moved through the state's 507 municipal courts in 2015.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. No surprise here.

I'm a municipal law and traffic law defense attorney. For more than two decades, I've watched my town find new and creative ways to fine anyone within its borders. It used to be a joke that the only way you knew you had been in our small town was you'd get a traffic ticket for *something*. Stuff like a STOP sign: if you didn't have your foot on the brake for at least five seconds, you "went through a STOP sign" or if you had your brake on for 10 seconds (to let the police really see that you stopped), you'd be charged with blocking an intersection.

We have lots of on-the-street parking. It used to be that every time we had a blizzard (5-plus inches to over-the-hood), the police would simply go up and down the street, giving out illegal parking tickets (like we had somewhere else to put all those cars). I got one of those tickets on one of the worst blizzards 20+ years ago and challenged it in Court and won. The police no longer give out the tickets -- at least until 24 hours after the snow's stopped. At $50 a pop, that's at least $5,000 that would have gone to the municipal general fund.

Another things is EVERY street has regulated "No Parking" except for Saturday and Sunday. If you're not thinking when you park your car at night, you may wake up to find your car ticketed the next morning.

Our municipal taxes have increased at least 25% in a year and our town still depends upon the extra income from fines.

Don't get me started on ticket quotas and "Driving on the Wrong Day of the Month".