No Courtroom, No Case: Ala. Judge Dismisses 220 Tickets
The 15th of January was a good day to be defending a traffic offense case in the Alabama courtroom of Judge Michael Newell.
After Winston County officials failed to assign him a courtroom because of a scheduling conflict, Newell dismissed all pending cases on his docket except for defendants accused of driving under the influence, reports the Birmingham News. One particularly lucky defendant had eight traffic tickets dismissed that dated back as far as 2006.
The judge tells the newspaper he feels the 220 dismissals were appropriate, since many defendants took time off from work to appear and had to wait for more than an hour before it became clear that traffic court would not be conducted that day. If it had been the defendants who were late, Newell says, he would have held them accountable. “I should hold myself to the same standard and that’s what I was trying to do.”
