Well, I never had the money, the patience or, frankly, the brains to go about this career through normal channels.  But at long last, I will try my first case.  I will represent a client for whom I am very passionate, and who is undeniably innocent.  I will be representing myself this summer in a case that will make Nancy Grace drool.

That’s right. I’ve been charged.  It happened on April 10.  My first court appearance was June 1.  The DA tried to get me to plea out.  I was having none of that.  Trial is set for June 28.  Bring it on, I say.

This isn’t my first brush with the law.  In 1979, I did time in a Duval County, Florida jail for letting my dog run loose.  A leash-law violation.  I beat that rap.  But I learned from my skilled and educated mouthpiece.  I can do this.

The screws are trying to get me off the streets.  As well they should.  I had planned my caper for months.  Then, one Sunday, April 10, 2011, I cased the crime scene, waiting patiently to commit the crime. 

“Drive around me.  Come on, idiot, drive around me,” I yelled from my car as I waved other drivers around.  I was on Greensboro Street, a narrow two-lane street in midtown Carrboro, North Carolina, between Weaver and Main.  I had pulled as far as I could off to the right, waiting.  Then I saw my opportunity.  And I grabbed it.

It was an older couple with a baby stroller or other sort of wheeled cart.  Just as they were about to cross Greensboro Street, they stopped.  There was something wrong with the cart or the wheels or something.  They hesitated.

“Come on, old man,” I yelled.  “You’re killing me here!”

Finally, as I inched my car into the normal flow of traffic, the old man straightened his cart’s wheels and stepped off the curb.  “Beautiful,” I said to myself.  I gunned my engine and made it to the mid-block crosswalk at the exact time the old man, wife and carriage stepped off the curb on the opposite side of the street. 

“Damn.  I did it!  I failed to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk!  Awesome!”

What a rush!

What I didn’t know at the time was that the Carrboro police were staking out that crosswalk.  Yeh, I was toast, all right.  I was nailed by the Carrboro screws at the next intersection.

Seriously, a Carrboro Police officer was staking out that crosswalk.  And seriously, that older couple with a carriage of sorts were at the curb on the opposite side of the street, preparing, but not yet prepared, to cross at that mid-street crosswalk.  And seriously, I covered my brakes and checked my rear-view mirror as I always do.  When my eyes went back to the street, I was at the crosswalk line.  And the older couple had just stepped off the curb.  Did I fail to yield?  Or did I choose to avoid a possible rear-end crash and continue on, choosing the overall safer maneuver?

The fine for the violation is $35.  Had I just paid the fine and been done with things, I would have been required to pay an additional $140 in court costs.  Most normal people, I suppose, would have paid all that loot and celebrated freedom.  Well, maybe I’m not normal.  After all, to this day I think Della is pretty hot!

I went to court June 1.  There must have been several hundred violators in the courtroom that day.  Multiply that by $140, and the county of Orange had a pretty good non-tax revenue day.  As part of the initial instructions to all us peons that day, the clerk told us where to locate an ATM and gave us a rather stern warning that the Orange County Clerk doesn’t accept credit cards, debit cards or checks. 

The first thing the Assistant DA said to me when my case came up was, “Would you be willing to participate in a safe driving program?”  Wow.  That one caught me off guard.  “We will reduce the charge to ‘unsafe equipment’ if you do the driving school,” she said to me.  I was dumbstruck.  I really didn’t want to argue with this poor young woman.  She was only doing her job.  But my guess is that the reduced charge would have still cost maybe $25, and the driving school fee must have been at least an additional $25.  Plus court costs, of course.  Instead of arguing, I steamed, and to myself I said, “I could teach every Carrboro Police Officer, every Orange County Deputy and everybody in this courtroom and their brother how to drive safely!”  The fact is I have had two speeding tickets.  The first in 1972 when I was 18 years old.  The last one was in 1981.  And I can produce dozens of “character witnesses” - people who have ridden with me and urged me, time after time, to drive faster than their grandmothers drive.

I simply told the poor woman that I was fighting the charge.  She turned away to retrieve a court date.  She told me the date, and I was on my way.

Here’s my thinking.  States, counties and cities and towns are hurting for revenue.  Most folks would just pay the $175 and be grateful that they don’t have to take time out of their day to fight such a stupid charge.  But I did the right thing that Sunday.  And I would do it exactly the same way if ever happens again.  And – if the Town Of Carrboro wants to take a police officer off the street on June 28 to be the sole prosecution witness and fight for a $35 fine, then more power to them.

Yeh.  They thought they had an open and shut case.  But I’m not taking the heat here.  I was framed.  And I will prove it on June 28 in Orange County, North Carolina District Court.  Well – I may not prove that I was framed exactly.  But I am taking this to the limit.

And I promise you, when I am finished, Nancy Grace will be envious.

More to come....

I am a special man.  If you doubt that, please read “Chosen” on this week’s Lunacy.