The Shaggy Defense   (random re me)

I trudged into Howard County Traffic Court this morning (78 in a 55, PBJ, thanks for asking), remembering to leave both of my photographic devices in the car (LG VX-6000 and Olympus Stylus 400). Of course, once I was inside the courthouse, I saw a guy with the same phone as me.

The session I was part of started at 9am, and I made sure to get there early and bring a book. Which was a good idea (the book, not the getting there early), because I was near the bottom of the list and there were several cases that took way longer than they should have. There was, of course, the token overly honest rookie traffic court defendant who gushed, i mean pled "I'm Guilty, your Honor" when the ticketing officer was not present. The judge dutifully pretended not to hear him and repeated, "Your officer is not present. How do you plead?"

On prominent display today was a unique, and surprisingly enough, sometimes effective defense: The Shaggy Defense. It's very simple: "It wasn't me." One lady with an eastern european accent successfully employed this defense on a technicality—the officer had misspelled her name on the ticket, so it was dismissed.

The other person who attempted to pull this off didn't fare so well. In a cringe-inducing series of events, an elderly gentleman with a cane in his right hand (quite obviously Alzheimerified to the gills) stunned the court by arguing that he had never owned the type of car he was allegedly pulled over in, and, of course, added to his already staunch defense the speculation that he was going through a bankruptcy and divorce at the time. This was three-plus years ago, because of some rescheduling conflicts, and the ticketing officer had been transferred twice and promoted three times, and still managed to have enough evidence to prove to the judge that the old coot had simply forgotten about the whole thing. You really do have to feel sorry for the guy when he gets fined $150 and asks for a 6-month payment plan, though...

Oh, the part I failed to mention is that when they were swearing the old guy in, he confidently raised his left hand and promptly realized that it would be better to raise his right hand instead. So he takes his right hand off his cane, almost collapses, stupendously manages to grab for the cane handle with his right hand in time to regain his balance, reaches across his body with his left hand to steady himself on his cane, awkwardly raises his right hand and says "I do." I managed to keep a straight face. I hope I do funny stuff like that when I get older.