What is an experience you had at a court house that you'll never forget?

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Atlanta, Georgia, is a wild mess. A “blue island in a red sea” is often said. It took 15 years of living here before I finally figured out how the city worked. One day I got pulled over by a City of Atlanta cop for expired tag. Nice gentleman, gave me a ticket. I think it would have cost me 9 bucks or so to pay it. Unfortunately I needed to be at a new job the day of the court appearance, so I didn’t make it, and forgot about it.

Fast forward a few months and I get pulled over for speeding in my brand new Miata, like a hundred miles out of Atlanta, on the way back from Christmas break. Turns out I had a bench warrant, and my license was suspended, from the failure to appear and I went to jail for the night. Bailed out in the morning, and bright and early the next Monday, in a suit and tie, I’m at the courthouse to get on the Failure to Appear docket.

I’d never seen anything like it. The court processed hundreds of people that day. First you got in line to see an official whose job it was to find each and every offense on your Atlanta city record that would keep you from getting your license reinstated that very day. Then with that paperwork in hand, you saw the prosecutor, who’d talk to you, ask you how you intend to plead, and importantly, give you advice on that subject, and then subsequently make a recommendation for the court. As I would learn later, many of those recommendations were for dismissal. The line moved fast. Court officials repeatedly explained the procedures out loud so people could understand them. They took the time to explain to anyone who didn’t understand.

Let me reiterate that this was the docket for any failure to appear case for minor crimes committed in the City of Atlanta. And current Georgia law means that a person’s license gets suspended after 60 days if they don’t take care of the ticket. There were people there for all manner of traffic issues. They were all handled in the same, expedient fashion.

After processing, you went up to the actual court and watched the session, waiting your turn. It was intense. You couldn’t use your cell phone and couldn’t talk to anyone so there was nothing to do but watch. I’d say the court went through some 15–20 cases per hour. At least half of them were dismissed. If the judge didn’t like your case for any reason, he’d wave you out of the courtroom.

He also provided running commentary on what he was doing for people. While I was there, several people went in there for offenses that were over ten years old. The judge said in these cases, “Try going into any other courtroom in Georgia with a 12-year-old offense, you will not leave without spending some time in jail.” All the old offenses just got dismissed. Everybody else got either a fine to pay or their charges dismissed as well. All received the form you need to go get your driver’s license reinstated.

Since this is 2020, I don’t need to beat around the bush. Most of the court officials were black. The judge was black, the bailiff was black. All carried themselves with quiet dignity, and did quick, efficient work, taking their duty to public service seriously. Black people took over the day-to-day running of the city proper, and they’re doing a bang-up job of it. They’re putting the rest of white Republican Georgia to shame.

At one point a young man sitting right next to me was falling asleep in the court. The judge called him out for it, for disrespecting the court by “showing the top of his head,” and made him sit in the front for awhile. After a few minutes, the young man asked the bailiff if he could step outside to splash water on his face. The request was granted.

The judge told of how the rest of the state wants to shut the hardest working court in the state down, and to tell others what they saw here, and how they don’t have to live in fear of a missed court date anymore, just come in and you’ll walk out with the ability to fix your driver’s license. I wanted to tell everyone.

When it was my turn to go, I was immediately struck when the judge looked me directly in the eye. I’m no stranger to prolonged eye contact but it reminded me that it’s been literally years since I’d done that with anyone other than family or a lover. The world and court around me faded and it was just me and him. His explanations went clear and direct into my mind. There wasn’t any room for misinterpretation in my answers. At the end he gave me my judgment and asked me if there were any questions or anything I’d like to say. I’d rehearsed since he’d asked this of everyone. I simply said, “Thank you for your service.” He nodded, said “thank you” and off I went. I remember one person commenting along the lines of “I remember the old days and how things used to be done, y’all don’t know how much better it is now.”

As intense as it was, it went fast, and once I paid my fine and got my form, I walked the two blocks to the DDS (department of driver’s services) and had a new license in my hand by lunchtime.

The speeding charge, I had to drive all the way to the Taliaferro County courthouse to deal with. When I found the right room, I was amazed by the courthouse itself; it must’ve dated back to the 1800s. Inside I found the right room and there were two women inside with desks in the center. Lining the walls were hundreds, perhaps thousands of leather-bound records books, stacked floor to ceiling, mind you, this room was perhaps 40′x40′ and 25–30′ high, cataloguing hundreds of years of Taliaferro County court history.

The lady on the left, a gentle black matron, plainly dressed, invited me to sit and beckoned for me to hand her my documents. After a few minutes she started asking me questions. About five questions in I suddenly realized she was the judge. She told me I needed to pay my dad back for bailing me out and was surprised and impressed when I said I had done so at my earliest opportunity.

When she realized the ridiculousness of throwing someone in jail over a speeding charge over an expired tag, charging me over a thousand in bail that I’d never see again, she shook her head and ripped up the speeding ticket into very small shreds, saving me the points, insurance hit, fine, and an additional $200 ‘super speeder’ fee that Georgia charges on some speeding fines. We spent a few moments making small talk over family, she admonished me to not speed too much in my fun new car, then I thanked her and took my leave.