Unfortunately this is not uncommon. I was on a jury where the defendant was charged with a city ordinance violation for posting temporary signs without a permit. He basically testified in court that he had tried advertising via standard methods and it was very costly and didn't gain him as much as signs did. We could tell he was playing the system and the fines. He would request a jury trial, plead that he was just a poor immigrant who was trying to make a living, and hope the jury would reduce his fine from the maximum. Unfortunately, even as the foreman, I couldn't convince two female jurors that he needed to be hit with the maximum fine. So in the interest of not holding the Judge and others up the other 3 male jurors and I agreed to reduce the fine to what the ladies wanted of $250 from $500. So, while he was fined, he still won by getting the fine reduced. We found out afterward from the city code inspector that this was his 5th incident in court and he had two additional tickets pending for the exact same thing.minytrker wrote:The AG doing nothing and someone at the roadeo saying they will just pay the daily fine really bothers me.
