in a nutshell: about 10 minutes ago I cracked a celebratory craft beer in a bottle , and left my overly hot Alabama apartment to try to catch a breeze and drink a beer. The road behind my apartment goes to a boat dock, and has very little traffic. As this is a college town, cops are trawling everywhere , even during the summer, in hopes of hitting something to count towards quota.
Less than a block from my apartment, and only about 3 sips into my beer, my afternoon is ruined by a local squad car. I get a patdown and questionaire, and told to pour out my beer. after some questioning made it obvious that I wasn't drunk and no Public Intoxication charge was in play, he writes me a ticket for an open container. In typical cop fashion, he lies about knowing the ticker price (" I have no idea", says the man who writes tickets for a living). He thanks me for my cooperation (as if it was voluntary), and leaves me with a pink ticket. I call the number for the local redneck municipal court, and am told it's $311 !!
$311. that's more than most traffic tickets, and barely less than most misdemeanors. My friend got a parking ticket for $16 today in birmingham, so not all fines here are high (as they are in , say, california).
$311. in a state where most jobs are retail/service jobs paying less than $10 an hour, like mine. my gross taxable income last year was less than $9k because part-time work is all that's available here. And I know plenty of folks back in my old state of CA who ended up in jail on bench warrants simply because they stopped making obligatory court appearances to tell judges they didn't have hundreds of dollars to pay off minor infractions.
When I asked the court receptionist just now "what do I do if i Don't have 300 bucks" she just said, "come to your court date and tell them that". And even that small bit of info was begrudgingly given.
$311 . in a state where I wasted bus fare trying to go to the DMV on a state holiday-- Confederate Memorial day. For most working people here, 311 is more than we make in a week. Meanwhile, some dude walking around a European street with a beer in his hand , unmolested by gangmembers in blue, would laugh riotously if told that the same action here is a whopping fine.
The way most courts play out is this-- you go to court, and presumably tell them you can't pay, and then what? re-schedule court dates indefinitely, in the hopes that the defendant misses work and gets fired, or simply can't come to court due to work obligations and then gets a bench warrant. this allows them to make a stupid arrest, and probably get more money for jails due to the extra incarceration.
I called the public defender and their only advice is ask for a lawyer on the court date--and that is subject to approval by a judge. I've been to jail before for marijuana, but this might be even more ridiculous. or maybe not--both are profoundly absurd. Even a $100 ticket is painful but more reasonable, but $311 is outrageous and unaffordable. If I had cash like that sitting around for disposal, I wouldn't be writing this on a library computer.
--any advice is appreciated , because I might not get much down here in the Confederacy.
*edit: there's some trolls in the comment section, but on the internet you're always going to sad individuals like that with lots of free time, perhaps too much Thanks to those who offered advice :)