PORTIA [as Balthazar]
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway.
It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute to God Himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. -- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice IV i 190-203
I apologize for such a long epigram, but Shakespeare is its own excuse, and this particular bit of Shakespeare is very often misunderstood. Portia, the cause of Shylock's hatred for Antonio, represents him (well. . . sort of) by going breeches in court. "Strained," I'm sure you know, means "constrained" -- forced. I.e. "mercy is not part of the law or any regulation; it is a mark of divinity that shows superiority to law." (See below, incidentally, because Shylock's legalism is not just "Jewish.")
I was reminded of this discussion because of my birthday a few months ago. In the Sovereign State of Georgia, citizens have reason to dread such anniversaries. Wise Georgia children who get cards from Grandma and Grandpa with $5 bills tucked into them put the gifts aside, because, once they become adults, they start getting a different sort of birthday card: state ad valorum taxes. Now, for poor folks like me, there isn't much to tax. The Crack Shack (my home) is rented, and my brother took all I could have inherited, so there is only the antique (because it's a Pontiac) car.
This last April, I went to pay my tag, but I had run out of money for the month by the 20th, so I had a couple of weeks of going hungry. I also would be driving with an expired tag until the next payday. Payday happened just as final exams did, as it turned out. On May 1, as workers in other nations celebrated, I was driving to get my car tag renewed on the first day that it displayed "expired" status.
I was pulled over and given a ticket.
It seems that police follow cars that go the speed limit and don't tailgate, around here, and they follow old, beat up cars. It "fits a profile." The police woman followed me for a mile and a half before she hit the lights and pulled me over for the tag. Since I was looking forward to being able to eat lunch again, I put this misfortune in context with the others. It didn't rate very highly. I proceeded to get my tag renewed (only now I figured that I would wait a couple of days), and I made a note of my court date in June.
That's what I want to write about: going to court. The police woman's zeal at catching me on day one had set off an alarm bell, but going to court set off klaxons. Dockets were called alphabetically, so with a last name beyond the middle point of the alphabet, I had to wait a while, and that meant getting to watch the judge dispense justice.
The court was preliminary. Defendants could only plead guilty and face their sentencing, or "not guilty." If they claimed "not guilty," they could ask for a trial before the judge in a few weeks' time or ask for a jury trial, in the county seat. They could also then ask for a lawyer to be provided, if they could not afford one. Certain crimes were automatically scheduled for trial in any case.
I watched as defendant after defendant went before this charming, affable judge and pleaded guilty and accepted a sentence. A few sought trial, and I learned that only one local attorney was responsible for all indigent cases in the city, as well as his private practice. One case stood out as an example of ignorance of the law. A teenager was accused of underage drinking. He asked for a trial before the judge. Had he known of nolo contendere, perhaps things might have been better for him.
Otherwise, things went like this:
A young black woman was charged with shoplifting from Wal*Mart. For her first offense, the fine was $700 plus forty hours of community service. A young white woman was charged with the same thing and got the same fine. A middle aged black woman was charged with having her dog off its leash and was fined $300. A man was charged with having a suspended driver's license, first offense, and no seat belt, and he was charged $468 for the two.
However, the judge, in each one of these cases, showed great mercy. Instead of imposing any jail time on any of these people, where jail time was a possibility instead of, or with, the fines, he gave each and every one of them "twelve months in jail, suspended sentence, with six months probation in order to pay the fine." Each month, the defendants have to pay an additional $44 of probationary administrative fee, mind you.
One man pleaded guilty to a second offense of driving on a suspended license and no insurance. His fine was over $1,000. He also got the six months to pay off his fine, and he walked out with a certain. . . militancy in his stride. I could hear the orichalar jangle from his work pants as he walked away.
DUKE
How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend’ring none?
SHYLOCK
What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
You have among you many a purchased slave,
Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts
Because you bought them. Shall I say to you
“Let them be free! Marry them to your heirs!
Why sweat they under burdens? Let their beds
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
Be seasoned with such viands”? You will answer
“The slaves are ours!” So do I answer you:
The pound of flesh which I demand of him
Is dearly bought; mine and I will have it. -- Merchant of Venice IV i
My own case? My case was easy. The judge "cut the fine in half" for me, because I had been such a good citizen as to take care of the tag in less than a week. He asked, "Do you have the money on you?" I said that I did, which was a fluke that saved me $44, as it turns out. I went over to the police payment window, and they said, "It has to be exact change." The usual fine for having a tag out of date is $160, but I had to pay $75.
I couldn't stop thinking, though, about what I had seen and the "mercy" of fines. Surely the people who shoplift from Wal*Mart are not Winona Ryder. They're more likely to be the poorest, most desperate of us, and the judge was offering them the mercy of $700 + $44*6 in fees.
I wondered about the policewoman's intense interest in giving me the ticket, the heavy docket, and the consistent fines. In Ferguson, MO, "court fines" were a "major revenue source," which CNN called "policing for profit." I also knew that the police themselves have talked frankly about how increasing fines and forfeitures is a good "strategy" for "revenue."
In general, small cities and towns have either seen receipts fall as business taxes have fallen or they have cut their own fiscal throats under a wave of anti-tax mania. Who, after all, rises to mayor and alderman/town council in the average town? It isn't the dispossessed. How many town governments look like the Country Club? Taxes on property fall, and revenue is still needed.
When we combine the needs, honest or dishonest, of towns to respond to the crises they face with the poisonous rhetoric of national conservatives, who keep repeating the zombie lie that "51% of Americans don't pay any taxes at all," it gets easy to think that the poor should be forced to pay. Never mind that policing for profit makes the voter into the enemy and turns the police against its constituency: if the people making budgetary decisions hear the Wall Street Journal's editorial writers (51% of Americans, they claimed, were "lucky ducks" for not paying any income tax -- after all their withholding) through the garbled mouthpiece of Neil Boorts or Rush Limbaugh, they'll be sure to think that they're engaging in economic justice.
My one trip to court was just impressionistic. I had the idea of writing this diary then, but I wanted to return to court and take notes. The next court date was today, as New Horizons circled Pluto and I circled Plutus. I have the full data from ten cases, below.
"One way and another, I have been consistently unfortunate in my efforts at festivity. And yet I look forward to each new fiasco with the utmost relish." -- Doctor Fagan, in Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall.
I opened up my notebook and began taking notes, and a young man instantly came over to me. He said, "As soon as I saw the notebook, I knew you were one of the good guys." We watched a few cases, and the mercy. I pointed out to him that the mercy was about saving the city/county money. I said, "Which would you rather, five days in jail, or $1,300 in fines for shoplifting at Wal*Mart?" If you're desperately poor, which one is the merciful sentence? He agreed. He said, "It's not about white or black, is it? It's about money." I said that I thought that's what
this was about, anyway. (You can see the results in case #8, below.)
Case after case went by, and the fines were. . . monstrous.
Perhaps they're not that high. I don't know. Is $300 how much it should cost to have your dog off its leash? Is $800 how much it should cost to have a second noise complaint? Driving with a suspended license is bad indeed, but revocation of the license ability doesn't come until the third offense.
What, indeed, is merciful before the law for the poor? Is it better to go to county jail for Saturday and Sunday for a month than have $1,378 (plus $44*6) in a debt, when you're unemployed? I don't know. I will be happy to read your comments, but I'd also like to invite each of you to go to court on one of these "traffic" days. Just sit and listen and consider whether, as Anatole France said, the law in its majestic equality forbids the rich and the poor alike from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges, or if we have shifted our tax burdens silently onto the poor, whom we can now despise as officially "criminal" as well as poor?
For the data, I numbered the actual cases, lettered all dockets. I only stayed to hear ten cases, although there were many, many more that day. "FTA" means "failure to appear." I should point out that one of the defendants called was "Hollis Brown." He did not appear. (I am not making that up.)
Data from 7/14/15, small city court:
#1 A. Bf, illegal lane change and expired tag, which had been corrected, also music too loud. Guilty. A warning given over the speakers in the car instead of the $? fine, but she was left with a fine of $244. 12 mo. in jail suspended for 6 mo. probation to pay the fine.
B. FTA
#2 C. Wf, shoplifting at W*M. Asked for a trial by pleading not guilty. Asked for a court-appointed lawyer. When she opted for a jury trial, he remanded her on bail until that time.
#3 D. Wm, expired tag. Pled guilty and waived trial. Had gotten tag renewed, so the fee was cut in "half" to $75. WM.
E. FTA
F. FTA
G. #4 Wf shoplifting at WM, fine of $700 and community service for a first offense. Defendant said that she did not really understand her options in regard to trial and contesting the charges, and she wanted a lawyer. She said that she could not afford one. The judge asked her whether she was in school (no), if she got child support, if she received any pay at all. She left with an application for a PD and remand for a later trial at the county seat.
H. #5 Bf ran a stop sign, fine was $147. Sentenced to 12 mo./6 mo probation to pay the fine. ($44/mo. for probation.)
I. #6 Hisp. f shoplifting at Dollar General. The fine was $700 and 40 hr of community service. The sentence was as above except that she was also forbidden from entering Dollar General for a year and had to complete the 40 hours of community service within 90 days -- stipulations that were not meted out on other defendants.
J. #7 Bm arrested for driving with a suspended/revoked license. He claimed that he did not know that his license was in that state. It was his second offense. The judge sentenced him to a fine of $1,382 and 80 hr of community service in ten months. He used the 12 month suspended/10 month probation payment.
K. FTA
L #8 (My interference is noted here.) BM accused of a second offense of driving on a suspended/revoked license. He pointed out that he had paid his prior fines and felt that it was unjust that the prior conviction make his present case worse. A clerk pointed out to him that driving on a revoked license "doesn't fall off."
Judge further explained that "the fee for loud music is $500 for the first offense and $800 for a second offense," and that's just how it is.
Defendant wishes that he could afford a lawyer, which provokes the judge to ask if he wishes to plea not guilty and go to trial. The defendant asks if he can go to jail, since the fines are too stiff for him to reasonably pay them off when he is unemployed. The judge sentences him to community service immediately but eight days in jail served on weekends.
Judge says that there are a few crimes in his court that have mandatory community service with no options: marijuana, suspended license, shoplifting, and littering.
M. #9 Wm marijuana > 1 oz. Case was deferred due to the police.
N. FTA
O. FTA
P. FTA
Q. FTA
R. FTA
S. FTA
T. FTA
U. #10 Bf speeding by going 64 in a 45 mph zone. Judge asked her age (19). The fine was $116, and the young woman said that she could pay it by Friday. He gave her 3 days in jail, suspended for 3 mo., and she could pay the fine in 3 days to avoid the probation fee altogether.