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Ripples: Keith feud influences traffic court
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Published: December 1, 2009
More than 100 people who'd rather be anywhere else yesterday morning crammed into Courtroom 1A in the Forsyth County Hall of Justice.
Some were bored, others aggravated. A few were actually frightened. "I could lose my license?" one distraught young woman asked her lawyer in an audible whisper.
As that mini-drama played out in one small corner of the room, city patrol officers and a stern-looking state trooper sat in their seats reviewing their notes or speaking to each other in hushed tones. Defense lawyers drifted in and out, occasionally calling out the name of a client during a lull.
All the while, a young prosecutor continued calling some of the 133 cases -- that doesn't count the "add-on" docket -- and valiantly plowed through a blizzard of paperwork.
Defendants who want a court-appointed lawyer fill out this form. If you intend to represent yourself and plead guilty, stand over there. Those who want a continuance, line up here. Trials wait until last.
It was controlled chaos, justice dispensed in 30 seconds or less.
Welcome to traffic court.
Just another day
Under ordinary circumstances, traffic court doesn't rate much attention. Speeding tickets, motorists caught driving without a valid license or driving while intoxicated land here. They're dealt with by the hundreds nearly every day of the week and hardly anyone notices.
Until Tom Keith, the district attorney who officially retired yesterday, decided to upset the apple cart on his way out.
By now, you probably know that Keith took the unusual step of publicly calling out District Judge Laurie Hutchins for reducing a ticket given to a man who was cited for driving 122 mph in a 65-mph zone. Hutchins lowered the citation given to Gilbert Turner from 122 mph to 79 in a 65, a 43-mph reduction that allowed Turner to keep his driving privileges.
(Cutting slack to somebody cited for going 75 in a 55-mph zone is one thing. But reducing a ticket for somebody zooming along faster than many NASCAR drivers manage on Sundays is ridiculous.)
Yesterday's docket included several motorists cited for speeds topping 80 mph. The young woman concerned about losing her license had her case put off until January. A middle-age man pulled for doing 82 in a 65-mph zone on Interstate 40 near Hanes Mall pleaded guilty, received a suspended 10-day jail sentence and was ordered to pay a $100 fine, plus court costs.
A little while later, a man with an otherwise clean driving record pleaded guilty to DWI, received a suspended 60-day jail sentence and lost his license for a year, though he is allowed to drive to work and back.
In other words, it was just another day in traffic court.
No more breaks
It's difficult to say whether Keith's display of frustration had an effect that's discernible to the general public. Yesterday morning's traffic-court session before District Judge William Graham looked and sounded like any other.
Only out the hallway or on the phone, in private and under the promise of anonymity, do you get some semblance of the reality.
"It just makes it harder for everybody. A guy who deserves a break might not get one now," one defense lawyer said. "Nobody offers any proof of anything. Prosecutors reduce tickets to improper equipment all the time, and they have no idea whether a speedometer was actually broken."
"Traffic court is the last place where you can get a favor and nobody gets hurt," another lawyer said. "It happens in every county in this state. People will pay attention for a little while and then forget about it."
A veteran law-enforcement officer volunteered that a cop who might have offered a discretionary, on-the-spot reduction in the speed cited isn't likely to be as forgiving now that they've seen a judge cut a monster break to a guy stopped for driving nearly twice a posted 65-mph limit.
"We'll go along with what the prosecutors say in court, but the soldiers on the street are through trying to help somebody out," he said.
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