critique of criminal conviction addendum
Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2011 7:18 pm
I have two items on my record that resulted in fines above $200. The first occurred on April 24, 2009 in Okaloosa county Florida. I received a speeding ticket for travelling at 60 miles per hour in a thirty mile per hour zone. I was a student at the Naval Explosive Ordnance Disposal School and was running late I did not realize the speed limit had dropped from 45 to 30. I paid a fine of $323 and completed an online driving course. No points were issued to my license. I have not received a citation of any kind since this incident.
The other event was a $200.03 fine ($465 total, including processing fees) for littering I received on the Citadel campus on May 10, 2007. I had returned from a week long Army field exercise. Summer school had begun and my car did not have the registered summer school sticker and I received a parking ticket. I then drove to the Junior parking lot to prepare for the drive home. I was the only car in the lot and I took off my boots and pants (I had gym shorts underneath). I had tossed my backpack, boots and clothes on the ground along with the parking ticket. A campus police car pulled up, lights flashing. Unsure why he was there, I told him I was preparing to drive back to Ohio. He said I wasn’t allowed to be changing clothes in the parking lot and picked up the parking ticket next to my boots and said I had littered. He wrote me a ticket. I explained I had not even left, yet and intended to pick it up. I took the parking ticket back along with the littering citation from him and went home. As I was preparing to leave for a month of military training, later that month, I called the court requesting a court date. It was a week or so before the court date. I was informed I needed to write a letter to the judge and the judge would not receive it in time. In lieu of receiving a charge for failure to appear in court, I agreed to pay the fine to settle the issue. I later became aware that littering (1st offense) was a misdemeanor (the lowest class) in South Carolina. I thought it was an infraction since I was not mandated to appear in court and was able to pay a fine to resolve the issue.
In the past two and a half years I have not received any citations or tickets. All fines were promptly paid and there are no infractions currently listed on my driver license abstract.
I think this might be too detailed and whiny? It's just the littering citation was total crap and I wanted to fight it but wasn't able to. Should I just skip all the details? Does it matter?
The other event was a $200.03 fine ($465 total, including processing fees) for littering I received on the Citadel campus on May 10, 2007. I had returned from a week long Army field exercise. Summer school had begun and my car did not have the registered summer school sticker and I received a parking ticket. I then drove to the Junior parking lot to prepare for the drive home. I was the only car in the lot and I took off my boots and pants (I had gym shorts underneath). I had tossed my backpack, boots and clothes on the ground along with the parking ticket. A campus police car pulled up, lights flashing. Unsure why he was there, I told him I was preparing to drive back to Ohio. He said I wasn’t allowed to be changing clothes in the parking lot and picked up the parking ticket next to my boots and said I had littered. He wrote me a ticket. I explained I had not even left, yet and intended to pick it up. I took the parking ticket back along with the littering citation from him and went home. As I was preparing to leave for a month of military training, later that month, I called the court requesting a court date. It was a week or so before the court date. I was informed I needed to write a letter to the judge and the judge would not receive it in time. In lieu of receiving a charge for failure to appear in court, I agreed to pay the fine to settle the issue. I later became aware that littering (1st offense) was a misdemeanor (the lowest class) in South Carolina. I thought it was an infraction since I was not mandated to appear in court and was able to pay a fine to resolve the issue.
In the past two and a half years I have not received any citations or tickets. All fines were promptly paid and there are no infractions currently listed on my driver license abstract.
I think this might be too detailed and whiny? It's just the littering citation was total crap and I wanted to fight it but wasn't able to. Should I just skip all the details? Does it matter?