Cy's Two

Anyone who who thinks they might like the principle of "States Rights" should have seen Dateline's recent expose on corruption in the legal system in Louisiana. That kind of set-up makes crossing a state line just like going in to Mexico or a Middle Eastern country. You leave your civil rights at the border.

Before anyone thinks I'm picking on Louisiana, the cops in DeQueen, Arkansas, terrorized some members of my family a few years ago over two cans of beer that hadn't had the Arkansas tax paid on them.

Here in Texas, a highway patrolman can file on you in any JP court in the county where the alleged offense was committed. Naturally, the patrolman files in the court where the judge is one of his buddies.

In the old days, if the judge found you guilty, he fined you a "dollar plus court cost" or $16.50 (a heck of a lot of money - 30 years ago). The State of Texas got the dollar and the judge kept $15.50. If he found you innocent, he didn't get anything. Essentially, you paid him to find you guilty.

Eventually, the Texas Legislature in its wisdom tried to right this great wrong. Now, the counties get the cost, and pay the judges a salary. This sounds fair until you realize that the patrolman still get to select the JP Court he files your case in, and the counties base each JP's salary on how much revenue he generates in fines. It turns out that both the patrolman and the judge are on a quota system.

The incentive is there to find you "Guilty", whether you are guilty or not.

Is it any wonder why the public has lost much of the respect it once had for our law enforcement and the judicial systems?

Cy is a locomotive engineer at the Hump in Fort Worth