BALTIMORE PARKING - DO SO ARE YOU INSANE?

Crime Scenes: Parking court no longer a haven for scofflaws

First, court seemed too easy; now people complain it's too hard

By Peter Hermann, The Baltimore Sun

4:43 PM EST, January 25, 2011

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For several weeks, parking agents weren't notified of court hearings and people fighting parking tickets were walking out of court, their cases dismissed.
Then the problem was solved and the parking agents were back to testify, but the judges were still substantially reducing fines and eliminating court fees. Even those who pleaded "guilty with an explanation" were being found not guilty, if their explanations seemed plausible.
But now, after a string of news articles based on hearings in District Court on Patapsco Avenue, not only are the parking agents back but the judges have gotten tougher on parking miscreants.
After some people complained last month that the court had become a farce, others are now complaining that it has become too strict. And there's still no real explanation of what went wrong in December that led to the no-shows by parking agents.
Therese Hessler wrote to me that on Jan. 19, nearly every person who showed up for the morning parking docket was found guilty. "Every single parking attendant/ticket giver showed up (totaling four this morning) with photographic evidence and testified against every single person," Hessler wrote in an e-mail.
As a result, the 9 a.m. hearing went long, bumping the 11 a.m. hearing by a half-hour, "causing what should have been a brief morning in and out of parking court for everyone to be a long and dragged out one instead."
Hessler wrote that publicity "has created a disaster in parking court on Patapsco Avenue."
One person's idea of disaster might be another person's idea of justice.
In December and early January, when parking agents weren't showing up, it was undoubtedly good for the people who'd gotten parking tickets and challenged them in court. With no opposition, judges dismissed the cases and people walked free.
But that is not good for an adversarial court system, nor for the government coffers, which were missing revenue from the fines.
People have a right to challenge their tickets, and the state has a right to fight back. The judge is there to decide, not to dismiss cases en masse.
Most people don't even bother to challenge a parking ticket; a report compiled for City Hall last year showed that in 2008, just 11,000 went to court, a fraction of the 396,000 parking tickets issued that year in Baltimore.
But the study showed that it was well worth the fight — 95 percent emerged from court with either a not guilty finding or a substantially reduced fine. Judges threw out more than $1 million in parking fines from 2006 through 2008. That's not much, considering that fines total about $13 million a year in the city.
There is still no real explanation of what went awry last month when agents didn't show for court. Adrienne Barnes, a spokeswoman with Baltimore's Department of Transportation, which employs parking agents, would say only that city and court officials have met over the breakdown and now "everybody is going to do their job."
Court officials have also declined to comment, but District Court's chief administrative judge, John R. Hargrove Jr., wrote a letter to the Baltimore Sun, published Dec. 28, indicating that a pilot computer program designed to notify agents of hearings was to blame.
Parking court works a little differently than, say, the courts in real life or on "Law & Order."
You can plead not guilty and request the parking agent show up to testify. That results in a hearing with both sides presenting evidence. Or you can say you want to come to court, but not request the parking agent to show.
The judge then presumes that you're "pleading guilty with an explanation." In other words, you admit you did wrong but you have a good or entertaining story to tell, and you hope the judge will feel your pain. Most people take this route.
At a hearing earlier this month, the judge indicated that people who pleaded guilty with good explanations have a good chance of having their fines "reduced dramatically." Many who tried this at the hearing had such good stories that the judge found them not guilty anyway, including a man who doubled parked in front of a bar to prevent a drunk friend from driving home and a city worker who parked illegally in front of a courthouse to deliver a witness for trial.
But Monday morning's docket on Patapsco Avenue was a far different story. The judge swore everyone to tell the truth — which had not happened before — and told them that a guilty with explanation plea would most likely result in fines cut in half, but with the court fees left intact.
None of the 70 defendants had requested the presence of a parking agent, so everyone pleaded guilty with explanations. And while the judge gave most a break in fines, it was hardly the breaks people had gotten in the past.
Challenging a parking ticket in court is no longer a sure thing.
peter.hermann@baltsun.com

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