CLEARWATER -- The 66-year-old woman stands in front of the traffic court magistrate. She is mad, nervous, chatty. The Clearwater police officer who wrote her a ticket for running a red light looks almost bored as he stands beside her and listens.

Like most officers, he is a traffic court veteran. He isn't nervous. He doesn't chat. Presently, he is biting his lip. He doesn't buy the explanation he hears.

"Running red lights is a pet peeve of mine," Carolyn Gilliam of Hernando County offers in her own defense to avoid an $80 fine. "It's just not me. I don't do that."

Traffic stopped in the intersection. A tall truck turning onto Gulf to Bay obscured a traffic signal. She didn't see the light turn red.

"The truck made you do it?" Magistrate Herbert Langford asks in his best "You've got to be kidding me" voice.

He has heard enough. Guilty. But he doesn't assess points against her license.

"You can do something without meaning to do it," Langford says soothingly, knowing that Gilliam is no traffic scofflaw. "I don't think you thumbed your nose at that traffic light."

It's a pretty typical session of Pinellas County night traffic court, the place where drivers come for roadway justice to fight minor traffic tickets. Here, the weird and the mundane collide, figuratively. It's Wednesday, the day after Christmas, at the north county traffic courthouse off U.S. 19.

Few lawyers show up. Most people represent themselves, to sometimes odd results. The magistrate, a lawyer paid $50 an hour by the state to decide cases, is part judge, part civics teacher, part scolding parent as he patiently explains the law or traffic safety.

Night traffic court is convened three times a week here and at another courthouse in St. Petersburg. Just disputed, noncriminal infractions are heard.

On this night, the magistrate is Langford, a jovial 54-year-old attorney who has been a traffic hearing officer since 1994 and is a mediator in private practice.

He has heard thousands of cases, and just as many excuses. Don't try the one about the broken speedometer. Heard it. Speeding because you had to go to the bathroom? He has heard that one, too. Lots.

As for the woman who explained that she couldn't have been speeding because she was praying, that's one Langford has only heard once.

And if you tell him you were speeding because you were late to a funeral, well, that will be the second such defense he has heard. The first time around, Langford told the speeding mourner, "Yes, sir, it could have been your funeral.' "

As lighthearted as traffic court gets sometimes, it's all serious business.

"Running a red light may seem like a small thing," Langford says. "But that's a quick way to get dead."

Langford explains that to Krzysztof Gil, 45, a Clearwater electrician, clocked by a Florida Highway Patrol trooper doing 74 mph on U.S. 19 in a 55 mph zone. He also wasn't wearing his seat belt.

Gil uses the broken speedometer defense. "I didn't know how fast I was going," he tells Langford. He has a receipt from a repair shop to prove it.

He says the seat belts were broken, too.

"When you get up that high, the officer could cite you for failing to file a flight plan," Langford says, telling Gil he must have known he was speeding.

Guilty. Gil gets points on his license. And $160 in fines and court costs.

Two sisters stand before Langford. One sister was cited for running a red light in Clearwater. She paid her ticket without contesting it, even though she was pregnant and had to go to the bathroom. So, she says, she had a good excuse.

But the other sister, who was a passenger, is challenging her own ticket for not wearing a seat belt.

Clearwater police Officer Tom Stein says he saw the passenger put on the seat belt just before he stopped the car. Too late to avoid a ticket.

The passenger, Debra Werneken, 42, of Palm Harbor says she already had the seat belt on. What Stein saw was her raising her hand to keep the sun out of her eyes. She wasn't raising her hand to put her belt on.

Langford finds her guilty and orders a $46 fine.

Stein, the officer who wrote the ticket, says afterward, "Sometimes, you really have to bite your tongue. The sun was in her eyes? Come on."

He says that he, too, has heard it all in more than 15 years of police work. Nothing beats the case he witnessed when he was a rookie.

A woman challenging a ticket was asked by a magistrate if she had anything to add after finishing her case. Boy, did she.

"That officer got me pregnant," Stein recalls her saying, pointing to another officer. "Needless to say, that case got dismissed."

Christopher Lanni of Palm Harbor is next. The 25-year-old got a ticket and $80 fine for driving 35 mph in a 15 mph zone at Honeymoon Island State Park. But he says a sign with a speed limit was obscured by underbrush. He has pictures.

Langford peers at the pictures and, by golly, he can't see the sign. A bailiff helps him.

"If I didn't have my contacts in, I wouldn't see it," Langford admits.

This is an easy one. Not guilty. But Langford reminds Lanni, "The good news is, you walk. The bad news is, now you know."

On some nights, half the people who appear to contest tickets are found not guilty, Langford says. Other nights, everybody is guilty.

Through three hours of hearings, Langford hears about 15 cases. Some go quickly with drivers pleading no contest rather than face trial and fines up to $500. So close to Christmas, things are slow on this night.

In a couple of weeks, Langford might hear three times as many cases.

One case is dismissed because an officer doesn't show up at court as required for trial.

Rinaldo "Ray" Rocha III is the recipient of that good luck. Rocha, 33, of Gibsonton got an $80 ticket for going through a red light. He says it's a bum rap. No matter. He doesn't have to pay.

Langford tells Rocha the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights is saving him a hit on his wallet. Thank the Fifth Amendment. Something called the due process clause.

"Maybe you heard the expression: You got off on a technicality," Langford says. "It doesn't matter if it's murder or failure to obey a traffic control device."

Due process, he says, is important and everybody gets it, even in traffic court. No cop, no ticket.

"Case closed," Langford says. "Civics class has ended."

Back to Tampa Bay area news
Back

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

Special Links

Mary Jo Melone

Howard Troxler

Headlines
From the Times
local news desks