I recently had an encounter with the justice system in Port Angeles as a senior citizen.
While I was driving, a police officer pulled me over to tell me he had a photograph of me not wearing my seat belt.
Now that’s obviously some high technological equipment to get a photo of me driving without my seat belt on and a ticket for $145 and I was on my way.
I’ve had a perfect driving record for the last 30 years and that wasn’t enough of an incentive to the judge to dismiss my case with a stern warning.
I’m applying for a loan to pay the fee because I live on Social Security and my income can’t afford it.
It seems that the average citizen is financing all this high-tech equipment so we can be photographed not wearing our seat belts.
While unsympathetic judges impose their law-abiding vengeance upon the very people who don’t really have a say anymore in the system, and only the wealthy and powerful are getting away with the crimes, we have to pay for while the system remains unjust and unsympathetic to us seat belt criminals.
The system seems to get worse as the years pass, making people think, “What’s going on?”
Is democracy in decline because of negative treatment by our court’s judges to people who aren’t really criminals, when scandals associated with political leaders flourish and they get away with it?
Jim Fetter
Joyce