10
Wednesday. August 18, 1976
University Dally Kansan
Day in court: a way out . . .
From nage one
served his apprenticeship as defense and prosecuting attorney.
First-year law students fill those roles. It might be of some consolation to you to know that not only your appeal but also your the prosecuting counsel, are "on trial."
THE COUNSEL, in other words, are graded on their performance by the judges. The Owen Marshall of today must demonstrate to the judges his grasp of the case, his courtroom savvy. Those counsel who, at the end of the year, have the highest scores in the tests will be awarded.
All of which, however, might be of little concern to the person whose precious dollars are on the line and who hopes to see justice prevail. The appeals procedure itself is fairly simple. Herewethere an unofficial, step guide to prepare for Your Day in Court:
1) Park your car illegally (no problem so far).
2) Have the Parking and Security police ticket it.
3) Decide for yourself whether you were actually justified in flaunting the parking laws of the University and, if so, what want to take the time to appeal the ticks.
4. Proceed to the Parking and Security Office in Hoe Auditorium and fill out—in duplicate, of course—a "request for review" form, stating your reasons for appealing the ticket and the facts of the complaint.
5) Decide whether you want to be present at the hearing (assuming a hearing is granted) or whether you wish the appeal to be heard. If the judge agrees with regular court session, the judges deciding among themselves the merits of the appeal strictly on the basis of the ticket in question.
$\$)$ Decide whether you like one of the three judges to be a non-student.
7) Wait to learn whether the judges have decided your appeal has merit; then put your name on the court dock, a schedule posted in the Parking and Security Office.
Do most students appearing in the court like the process as seriously as they would for a real criminal case?
6) Re-examine your facts and your conscience, and await the fateful day.
Manson said he thought the court inspired the respect, though perhaps not the awe, of his predecessor. "It was a big win."
"There are three judgements behind a big dee
in big chars," he said, "but beyond that
there are other things."
BUT, MANSON emphasized, you should be serious.
"In so much of the law," he said, "it's down to the serious do the judges think we need."
In most cases there is one overriding reason to be deadly serious: you and your money are loath to be parted. Ordinarily the amount involved is only five dollars, but three-figure sums are not unknown in the annals of the traffic court.
Reviewing his career as defense counsel, Traffic Court Judge Bill Skepkil recalled a time he had been called on to represent a plaintiff in a lawsuit. He tickets. The student's basis for appeal; he simply thought he was right in parking wherever he wanted to park. Skepkil was impressed by the work of the student.
THE SESSION WAS not a pretty one. Arguments raged for 45 minutes, each attorney tryed to overwhelm the other. The judges recessed for an hour (a four-hour session lasts about 10 or 15 minutes). Finally the court granted nine of the appeals. Skepnik thought he had done the impossible to salvage as many as nine. But the defendant was left with more than 45 violations, to the extent that some students have bought cars for less.
If you're thinking of simply ignoring the uck, hoping it will be buried by the sand you were standing on, the best is to
Security people have long memories. If you wish to graduate, you must pay the fine or have it nullified. Failure to pay can also lead to your being removed from the Court, where the University can prosecute your ticket as a misdemeasure. That is certainly something to be considered by the university.
What exactly are solid grounds on which to base an appeal? Can you simply state that you're sorry, you didn't know you were misleaving and you'll never do it again?" "I ignorance, of itself, is not a defense," Manson said.
ANYONE WHO has a car registered at KU is presumed, however, unrealistically, that the judge will be governing parking and traffic flow given to him with his registration sticker. So, if a four-year veteran of KU pleads ignorance, the judges are likely to turn a
But there are extremal circumstances that can excuse even the most obvious violations.
One student's car thoughtlessly died on her in the middle of campus one day last summer. With the aid of patsy she bought a new car and parked in a parking area—in which, sad to say, she wasn't authorized to park. She then walked to a phone booth to call a garage for assistance. When she returned, a pale man called from the parking authorities awaited her.
she appealed her ticket on the grounds that she had parked in the restricted zone only out of necessity, and that under the circumstances there was little else she could have done.
CLEMENY TRUMPED; the judges granted her appeal. They advised her, not her parents, to take them to alert campus police to her predicament; raising the hood of her car, turning on her car's emergency flashers or taking a note and leaving it on the windshield.
Don't get the idea, though, that a note pad, a pencil and a fertile imagination are required to navigate campus. What the judges look for is some evidence that you made a "good faith" effort to avoid parking in violation of the rule. You can't unavoidable situation made it necessary.
"Everybody has a story, everybody has a reason," Skepnik said, and the judges are there to listen. He said he thought there would be more appeals if most students knew how simple the procedure was and how many valid bases of appeal there were.
If you decide to appeal, you have a better than 50-50 chance of winning. Bill Medicare, another judge on the traffic court, said that probably 50 to 60 per cent of the appeals that
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PARKING VIOLATION NOTICE
REQUEST
BALANCE      TAX    NOTICE
04/25/19     7/23/19
This document may be used in connection with the application of the regulation. You are welcome to use this document for fee, assistance or payment.
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☐ 2. Wearing a mask
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☐ 4. Not diagnosed with
☐ 5. Unauthorized vehicle
☐ 6. Over parking
☐ 7. Restricted area
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came to the court were granted. A quick check through the records of past months' appeals seemed to bear that figure out. The judge noted that the percentage might be even higher.
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ACCORDING TO the latest figures available, the campus police issued 28,361 tickets parking from July 1, 1975 to Jan. 2, 1976. The traffic court heard from 500 to 600 appeals on those tickets, half the appellants appearing in person before the court.
Are more than 50,000 tickets in one year?不多? Do campus police have fictitious tickets?
Mike Thomas, director of Parking and Security, said that although the number seemed probabilistic at first glance, it seemed more reasonable when one considered that the average campus population was about 25,000. That, combined with the large parking-district parkings, makes a large parking-district figure practically unavoidable, he said.
Manson, however, was not in total agreement.
Especially ill-used, he thinks, are those students who park behind a building on campus for a few minutes to drop off a paper, pick up an assignment, perhaps even pay a parking fine—only to find that The Ticketer has struck again.
"THE PARKING and Security Office, in my onion tickets, ticket no readily," he said.
Such "violations" of the parking rules don't really disrupt the parking scheme of the University or interrupt the flow of vehicles to parking tickets in many cases shouldn't be written.
Fellow Judges Modrcin and Skepnik, however, dissented. They said they thought Parking and Security was not to blame for the large number of tickets, and that for every student improperly ticketed another violator was escaping scout-free.
IT'S THE JOB of the traffic court, Mordic said, to decide whether a ticket issued in a certain situation was unreasonable. He expected to be judged such considerations.
But the three judges agreed that some clarification was needed in the regulations, especially as they applied to campus traffic in the summer.
To that end, Manson has decided to throw himself on the mercy of his fellow jurists and appeal a ticket he earned on Memorial Drive. He hopes that his appeal will lead to a more exact definition of where the hapless summer student can park.
But let's imagine that you've been issued a ticket, appealed the ticket and been denied in your appeal. Do you have any reason to travel in your quest to beat this raan?
ONE RECOURSE is to vent your spleen to the judges who've denied your appeal. Modrún said that at least one rebuffled man had taken the harangu approach.
A more constructive method, however, might be to appeal to the court "en banc." In such a hearing you would present your argument to the entire corps of judges, rather than to just three of them. Skepkin said very few appeals ever got that far.
One way to increase your chances of winning your appeal right from the start is to enlist the aid of an attorney, provided by the court in the person of a first-year law student. During the summer there are attorneys working in the coding to Modrick, puts the judges at a disadvantage. Attorneys, the judges agreed, are the eyes and ears of the court.
Thus the dual role of the court; a forum
for the 'tickeetee' and a training ground for
the judge.
JUDGES MANSON, Skepnik and Modric agreed that the training afforcd the law student in the traffic court was of great value.
As an attorney he must hone his skills of oral presentation, of questioning, of thinking on his feet–perhaps even of dealing with whimpering clients. There are limits to what miracles the traffic court attorney can work, however.
"You can't plea-bargain like Perry Mason can," Modrin admitted.
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The traffic court judge, on the other hand, is forced to make difficult decisions and, more importantly, to give valid reasons for those decisions. A simple statement of, "The equities were not in your favor," won't often satisfy an appellant appeal.
THE JUDGES agreed unanimously that
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the court was serious business, but they also agreed with the sentiment expressed by them.
Which leads you to believe that a person's idea of courtroom fun depends quite a bit on whether the bench he's on and on the outcome of appeal. Five dollars is, after all, five dollars.
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