Woman fined $1,722 and put on probation over license plate decal left in glove box has case closed
When Linda Ford was pulled over early one morning last September for having a dirty license plate, she had a license plate decal in her glove box proving she had paid her Georgia vehicle registration fee for 2015.
She showed the decal to the officer, but he ticketed her anyway, because Coweta County records—incorrectly, it turned out—showed her registration was suspended.
That resulted in a court saga which, at one point, had racked up over $1,700 in penalties for Ford, who was also put on probation. Yet many counties in the state would fine a driver no more than $40 for the same error, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
But Ford’s story finally reached a happy ending this week, when the penalties were cancelled by a judge, without explanation. There’s no word, however, on whether she will get any of the $300 she has already paid refunded. And Ford, a 52-year-old airport baggage handler, is not alone in suffering the consequences of a system that penalizes some far more than others for the same offense, the newspaper says.
Ford’s ordeal began at a Grantville Municipal Court hearing in December. Although she brought records to prove that she had paid her registration, Judge Lisa Reeves fined her $720 for not having the decal on the license plate at the time of the traffic stop.
The judge gave Ford 30 days to pay, but on Feb. 9, when Ford returned to court, she had saved only $480, due to having had to pay nearly $5,000 to repair her car shortly before the December hearing.
The judge then increased the fine to $1,590 and put Ford on probation, which resulted in additional supervision fees, the AJC article reports.
With a total of $1,722 owed to the court for not remembering to attach the sticker, Ford was feeling bleak about her situation.
“I tried to live a clean Christian life. I ministered to the children. But I didn’t feel like I was worthy to do such thing. My life changed,” she told the newspaper, explaining about the shame she felt over being on probation.
But, less than a week after the Atlanta Journal-Constitution initially reported about her case and some three hours after a lawyer now representing Ford entered an appearance, the fine was canceled without explanation and her case was closed “with modifications.”
Attorney Sarah Geraghty of the Southern Center for Human Rights told the newspaper there is a $1,000 limit on fines for the decal offense, and state law does not permit a fine to be increased after it has already been imposed.
“Many city court judges may feel pressure to have their courts serve as revenue sources for the city,” Geraghty said. “Too often the goal of money collection is put in front of the more legitimate goals of public safety and rehabilitation. These are the courts that most people will have some interaction with and when they see that money is the primary focus, it really undermines the integrity of the courts and it makes people lose faith in their local systems of justice.”
Reeves didn’t respond to the newspaper’s request for comment.
