Re: Man With Suspended License Joins Court Zoom Hearing While Driving

Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

On May 30, 2024 at 1:49:58 PM PDT, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com> wrote:

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

This is amazing.

I just feel sorry for his poor lawyer, who's stuck trying to defend
this idiot while he's committing crimes in real time in front of the
judge. That's not something they cover in law school.

https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1795899966591803394/vid/avc1/480x270/Fth6y5IP9TumkjF3.mp4?tag=14

His lawyer further pissed off the judge by saying he was only charged
with driving on a suspended license as the judge was looking at his
license record and could see that it was still suspended.

I saw the Steve Lehto video this morning. I was thinking of posting
about it but you beat me to it.

I must have missed the “How to Deal With Dumbass Clients Who Commit Crimes
*In* Court” class in law school.

With as heavy a LART as you can carry, applied directly to the skull,
having first asked the judge's permission to confer with your client?

I'm going to have to withdraw my initial impression of this matter and
apologize to the defendant. It turns out he was caught in a Kafa-esque
nightmare of bureaucracy.

However, my initial impression of his lawyer still stands. She sucks.
She needed to consult with her client, to draw out of him exactly what
was going on, and then present it to the judge to gain sympathy.

Under legal ethics, a lawyer is obligated to represent the client to the
best of his or her ability and that's not what happened here.

There was a followup Steve Lehto video. In his earlier veto, he
explained that video clips from this judge's courtroom get posted to
social media frequently because he just doesn't take any guff.

After this defendant was exposed to worldwide humiliation, the Detroit
tv station with the nation's most famous call letters WXYZ tracked him
down.

Historic note: In radio days, WXYZ was a major source of programs fed to
the Mutual Broadcasting System. The Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet,
both of which began as radio dramas, were produced in the Detroit radio
studios of WXYZ.

He was fucked.

His driver's license was suspended in 2010 for failure to pay child
support. He must have gotten the child support matter cleared up because
a judge lifted the suspension. Now, there is no automatic process to
file a judge's order with the state driver's services bureau. He was
relying upon something called "Michigan Friend of the Court" to perform
this duty but they failed to do so. I have no idea if he could have
obtained a copy of the judge's order then gone directly to the
appropriate state office to file it to receive an immediate lift of the
suspension on their records.

Until the state driver's service bureau shows that the suspension was
lifted on their records, then both the police and the court using their
system continue to see the suspension.

I don't know what his earlier traffic stop was for but that cop found
the suspension and issued a ticket for the additional charge.

All of this should have been taken care of in 2010. Still, you'd think
he was very well aware of this as his driver's license would have
required renewal at least three times! Clearly, even if the record of
the suspension was in error, he was still driving on an expired license.
Sometimes paperwork floats around for a long time before landing, it's
possible that he wasn't prevented from renewing the license during this
period and may not have been aware of the problem.

The very first thing his lawyer should have done was to follow through
with the state driver's services bureau to get them to acknowledge the
judge's order from 2010 that lifted the suspension.

Why was he driving to the doctor during this court hearing? His wife was
in medical distress. All that was on his mind was getting her help.

His lawyer should have spoken with him immediately. Once she was told
about the wife's medical emergency (which she should have been told
about BEFORE the hearing), then she should have spoken with the judge
and I'm sure the judge would have lifted his order requiring him to
report to jail. He spent two nights in jail.

I've told this story before. There was a very old unpaid traffic ticket
on my record which led to license suspension. Because my license was
suspended, it couldn't renewed when it expired. (I should mention that I
had renewed the license once if not twice.) I went back to court,
had a hearing, and was prepared to pay the old fine. They added "court
costs", which is a bullshit tax that's added on top of the fine, plus
some other charges. I asked for a copy of the paperwork so I could file
it that day with the state driver's services bureau and then renew the
expired license. They refused to cooperate. They put together a large
computer record which gets transferred to the state capital to be
entered onto their system. It would take another three weeks to update
my record on their system till I could renew the license.

They offered to let me pay yet another fee to "expedite". I paid. It
still took three weeks. Hey! They returned a twelve year old license
held as bond!

Even though I had a judicial order, the court doesn't provide it to the
bureaucrats immediately, and when the bureaucrats finally receive it,
they don't take immediate notice of it. That meant I was STILL in
technical violation of the law.

It got better. Once the license expires, to renew it, I had to file my
identification documentation again, which means showing them a birth
certificate and Social Security Card and proof of residency. Well, I
couldn't find my birth certificate. That meant another trip to the vital
statistics registry. The clerk refused to give me a copy of the birth
certificate because I had no state driver's license to prove my
identification. I explained my dilemna. The supervisor was friendly and
had heard it all before and allowed me to obtain it.

It still gets better.

In olden days, they'd make a negative from the microfiche. Well, thanks
to to the state health having computerized records from all local vital
statistics registrars into one statewide database, it was no longer
possible to obtain a copy from the registrar that had issued it in the
first place. More waiting. It took weeks to get it from the state
capital.

With even more massive STOOPID, I was told not to ask for a copy with my
father's name on it in addition to my mother's name as that would have
delay issuance by additional weeks. Computerization sure sped everything
up, didn't it. Later, I asked for a separate copy with my father's name
on it as well.

Finally I had enough paperwork to renew the license. Because it had
expired, they made me take a driving test, which was no big deal. Still,
it was illegal for me to drive the car to the license bureau on that
expired license in the first place. The examiner didn't raise that
point.

I actually found the "original" negative copy from microfiche of my
birth certificate, a later copy in a different format, and with the two
additional copies from the state, I now have four copies of my birth
certificate.