Silly judge, the law is for everyone, not just the plebeians you rule over on a daily basis. A Pennslyvania Magisterial District judge was totally busted for dismissing her own parking violations, which she racked up with her BMW.
The state’s attorney general says she’ll face criminal charges of conflict of interest, tampering with public records and obstruction charges in the case, reports Reuters.
She reportedly had two tickets from November 2010 for parking violations, and a third ticket for an out-of-date registration, and had failed to pay those tickets on time. So instead of showing up according to the summonses she received, she simply logged on to the online court system records and zap! — erased those violations.
She was arraigned and released on $25,000 bond, ostensibly under the orders of another judge. Because if she’d done it herself, no one would ever know any of this had ever happened.
Judge busted for dismissing her own traffic tickets [Reuters]
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Next time, do it right. Cut a back-alley deal with the local PD/Parking Authority. How long has this woman been a judge anyway?
She was a cheapskate, I bet you anything. “Why should I have to pay someone to do what I can already do with a click of the mouse! Those plebes….”
Not long enough to learn to do it properly, I presume.
No, I’m sure someone wanted her gone. There’s no way a state’s attorney would open a case against a popular judge for something this small.
Nice…. hubris run amok!
Conflict of Interest is an actual crime?
I’m not defending what she did. I think that the tampering and obstruction charges are just.
It is if you’re a judge.
You betcha it is. At no time can you use your official government position to influence anything or anyone for personal benefit (including friends, family or anyone else in relation). Period. Yes, politicians that do this are breaking the law. I don’t see anyone walking up to them to give a citizens arrest though and no cop is brave enough to sacrifice his career to reprimand a politician, so they don’t see justice.
SCOTUS ruled that it isn’t a conflict of interest to purchase stock in a company your known current decisions on legislation will affect. Perfectly legal to introduce a bill demanding a “special investigation” of a company, buy the stock when it drops, then withdraw the bill and sell.
Yep. I had worked in the private sector for several years before working for the government. About 2 years after I left my private sector job, I received a wedding invitation from 2 former co-workers/friends. The problem was, I was now working for the government agency that was responsible for overseeing my former employer. I had to advise my supervisor that I had received the invitation, and I also had to meet with an ethics attorney, advise them that I was invited to this wedding, and that I would be receiving a meal and drinks, and I would also be interfacing in a private setting with former co-workers. Before I could attend, I needed to get approval from my supervisor and the ethics attorney. I also had to agree that I would not partake in any free food or drink unless it was also offered to all of the other guests.
Any time I have had to interface with any work of my former employer, or former co-workers I have disclosed the POTENTIAL conflict of interest, as well as a self assesment of whether I might show favoritism
Within government, yes, most of the more serious “rules” are written by the relevant senate/congress and thus are actual laws. I work for the federal government, where the private sector has an NDA to prevent you from telling the world their secretes that is enforced by contracts, the federal government has classified information and it’s a crime to tell the world (could be considered spying/treason). It’s a federal law that I cannot drive and talk on the phone while getting paid, it doesn’t matter if it’s legal in the state. There are many other things as well.
It’s even questionable to take out a coworker out to lunch because of so many rules.
Example, I have a job dealing with writing stuff (being vague cause I have to). And another guy checks it for format or what not. I can’t even take him out to lunch, even though we started together and are good friends. In the corporate world, I would buy lunch and get bought lunch. So weird.
judges aren’t even supposed to reference you to attorney’s either because of conflict of interest.
if i was her, i would have asked another judge i knew to take care of it for me.
Criminal charges, conflict of interest, tampering and obstruction? Hopefully “Fired” is somewhere in that list too. . . .
Actually, it probably isn’t. It’s likely that an appellate court (usually the state’s highest court) will have stripped her of her powers until her trial is resolved, but firing a judge is generally VERY difficult. Not impossible, but there’s good reasons to make it tough to just kick out a judge.
Figures it was a BMW.
What do you mean? Not all people who drive BMW are crooks.
What’s the difference between a BMW and a porcupine?
The BMW has the pricks on the inside!
no, being a smug asshat isn’t illegal.
In Atlanta I have definitely noticed that a larger number of aggressive, rude drivers are in BMWs than in other cars. I’m not saying all BMW drivers are that way, but they are overrepresented in the club of rude drivers.
What a surprise. Another person who feels ‘entitled.’
Exactly. And you know what? I’m not even surprised by this story. I’m sure it goes on all the time.
Referring to the previous article on public humiliation, I support the return of Stocks and Pillories.
How about standing on a street corner with a sign saying “I Fix Tickets”?
On second thought that might seem more like an advertisement than a punishment. . . .
“I fixed my own tickets”
For corrupt public officials ABSOLUTELY!
We’re gonna need a lot of real estate and wood to accommodate them all.
no surprise this happened in my home state of PA – considering the kids for cash scandal and all the other crazy dirty judges running in this state -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
Oddly enough I was a witness in one of Ciavarella’s cases back in the ’01 time-frame.
The judge nailed that guy to the wall. He was guilty by the way, but man I never saw the book thrown so hard at someone in my life. I was going to send him a Christmas Card this year but forgot to
yeah he was well known for throwing the book at people in general – I remember classmates of mine who got in trouble in our teen years pleading and begging not to go before him because they said “he sent everyone to juvi” – I was never in any trouble to find out first hand – it’s one thing to throw the book at someone to teach them a lesson— it’s something totally different to do it for profit-
Yeah. It is and was and probably will continue to be common. In the SW Pennsylvania town where I grew up it was absolutely impossible to get a cop or a JP to fix a ticket. No, you had to go directly to the mayor, ‘gift’ in hand, and everyone else was afraid enough that they never stepped over his eminence’s line.
JP = ?? Judicial Person? I’m in NYC, so maybe we don’t have titles.
JP == Justice of the Peace, a local who plays judge for the lowest level misdemeanor cases.
When you have a good paying secure job in the public sector, this is exactly what you do not want to do. Unless she was an elected judge there would have been basically no way she could get fired short of committing a crime. Besides losing her job and facing criminal charges she could also, depending on her contract, face losing her state pension. Abusing your power to save a few hundred bucks doesn’t seem like a good idea now, does it?
One of our county commissioners thought it was a good idea to pay for his country club membership with non profit funds loaned to him by the head of the non profit. His mother even dummied up an invoice for him to make it look legit. All three were caught and arrested.
Here’s the kicker – he was running for re-election last fall. We couldn’t have his name taken off the ballot. Thankfully he wasn’t re-elected (he came in last).
What a dumb ass. Throwing away a great paying job with great benefits so he could cover a $1400 CC membership.
She was elected. District Justices (PA name for local magistrate) are elected to 6-year terms.
She’ll probably get a week of paid administrative leave… or two if they really want to make her an example.
Abuses of power should be met with stiff penalties.
Dear Ms. Judge, you are what’s wrong with America / people / the system.
Sincerely yours,
Disenfranchised human being
So for a few hundred bucks worth of parking tickets she risk her cushy well paying career where everyone calls you “your honor”? How do these people ever become judges?
I believe being a lawyer for several years is a requirement. Take that as you will
Nicely played.
No need in PA to be an attorney to be a district magistrate. The positions are elected ones.
I believe those two sentences sum up the problem. That said, we do have some very good ones.
Looks like she
*puts on sunglasses*
Showed poor judgment.
nah, jury’s still out on that.
The verdict? Hilarious!
Snort.
YEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!!!!
you’d think they could do something with the software that would prevent that sort of thing and not let the judge complete the action.
also, normally i try to avoid the spelling error comments but i can’t tell if it’s an error or intentional – because Penn-sly-vania is a pretty good one in this case
I briefly worked at a company that wrote software for police departments. Every change to the database was logged into another database. It wouldn’t surprise me if the same design was working here. The judge could delete her own citations but she couldn’t delete the record of her delete in the other database.
In my district they would most likely pat her on the back with a few atta girls. She must have pissed someone off.
Sounds like their online court system needs a better permission system.
wait, I thought this is what being in a position of authority was all about? vote yourself a raise, keep loopholes for insider trading, speed when you want with no emergency lights on because you can, kill off anyone that opposes you…… ect.
For my city council, it certainly is. While people are losing their jobs left and right, B.C’s minimum wage now being the lowest in the country, skyrocketing inflation and raises a thing of the past, they vote themselves a 40% raise over the next 5 years.
Well, then what good is being a judge if you can’t dismiss your own tickets?
Does this really surprise people? Every parking authority has some director or higher up that gives people what they want.
The University of Texas has dismissed parking tickets without formal appeals so a journalist would not write poorly about their new foot ball team.
Doesn’t seem fair for those tuition paying students.
Such is life though, some people are above the ‘law’ including directors, institution presidents, senators, state reps, etc. It’s just who will come out and say something that matters.
The ironic thing, is that had she gone before a judge to address the tickets, the other judge probably would have dismissed, or greatly reduced the charges as a “favor” to a fellow judge.
Oh come on she is ABOVE the law. HOW DARE YOU judge her! lol /s
Come on. She was trying to save tax payer money.
Now she will probably get a higher court appointment for her punishment from a broken legal system
Power is pointless if you can’t abuse it.
Well, what good is it to be judge if you can’t at least get out of some tickets?
What good is the law if not applied equally?
What, a political hack local judge fixing their own tickets. Without the perks why be a judge which is usually a very political position. She probably has seen this done in the past and has been asked to do it for others.
It was in Lancaster, so shouldn’t she be driving her horse and buggy to work?
The Witch: I’m not a witch I’m not a witch!
Sir Bedevere: But you are dressed as one
The Witch: *They* dressed me up like this!
Crowd: We didn’t! We didn’t…
The Witch: And this isn’t my nose. It’s a false one.
Sir Bedevere: [lifts up her false nose] Well?
Peasant 1: Well, we did do the nose.
Sir Bedevere: The nose?
Peasant 1: And the hat, but she is a witch!
Crowd: Y eah! Burn her! Burn her!
Sir Bedevere: Did you dress her up like this?
Peasant 1: No!
Peasant 3, Peasant 2: No!
Peasant 3: No!
Peasant 1: No!
Peasant 3, Peasant 2: No!
Peasant 1: Yes!
Peasant 2: Yes!
Peasant 1: Yeah a bit.
Peasant 3: A bit!
Peasant 1, Peasant 2: A bit!
Peasant 2: a bit
Peasant 1: But she has got a wart!