Criminal Action Extended

Following up on my promise I made in yesterday’s article, I am faithfully writing about another misuse (in my opinion) of our judicial and law enforcement time. To be honest, I truly believed my promise would not be fulfilled for at least a couple of days. Little did I know that it would be less than 24 hours… actually, it was less considering I found the contents of this article shortly after completing my previous article.

Premise of the situation is as follows. Man facing dire economic conditions has a choice: pay his house mortgage or pay for his lawn to be replaced. Now, I’m fairly certain any rational homeowner would make the sane choice in this manner and pay his house mortgage. The man of course paid his mortgage and allowed his lawn to deteriorate into a brownish display of dead grass. Wouldn’t we all? Well, his brown grass created such an outrage in his community that he was served a notice requiring his appearance in court to settle the damage created by his “criminal action.”

Like any good citizen not bullied into following the rules and regulations of those who wield power as if it’s a magic wand, he didn’t appear in court. The local judge, “enraged” by the citizen’s use of free will, decided that it was appropriate to arrest and jailed the man for 2 days. Contempt of court, show up or be jailed. Seriously… arrested, finger printed, photographed, entered into the criminal database and jailed for 2 days over a brown lawn? Yes, it actually happened.

How can something so simple be allowed to reach this level of absurdity? How hard would it have been for the Civic Association to work with the man in an effort to settle this issue without it going to court? Knowing that he is a retired individual living on limited resources, they should have understood the situation and worked on a human level to help correct the issue. However, their “rules are rules” approach led to this man being treated like a second rate individual.

A testament to the fact that humanity and rational thinking still exists, a man and several volunteers helped the man replace his lawn and make it a nice shade of compliant “green.” Who was this kind gentleman? He was a former resident and former Marine who felt the man was treated unfairly. Thank goodness for some basic common sense in our uncommon sense world.

How much time was wasted because of this lunacy? How much money did it cost taxpayers by having the courts and law enforcement involved in this “incident?” Why did this man have to be demeaned in front of his neighbors, his family, and country because of his lawn? Sometimes I just cannot fathom what our judicial system is used for when there are actual criminals roaming the streets because they don’t have the time to charge and prosecute them or place to keep them jailed.

Can’t these matters be taken care of without laws, rule books, and police involvement? Can’t we act as rational adults and work these things out without someone with a gun enforcing the “law?” Weren’t we taught in school, and even as toddlers, the ideas of compromise and helping others? Since when did we become accustomed to a third party being necessary to mediate all disagreements or arguments? I’m pretty sure people are generally smart enough to work things out in an agreeable manner without help from an “objective” third party.

We need common sense to return. Without it, we are nothing bunch a bunch of crying babies asking for mommy and daddy to come solve our problems because we didn’t get what we wanted. Next thing I know, I’ll be reading about a grandma being arrested because she left her laundry on the line for 2 days when it clearly states in the bylaws of the subdivision that all laundry must be removed 30 minutes prior to dusk. Oh, you think that won’t happen? Did you think someone would go to jail because their grass was dead before you read this?

Citation: http://www.nypost.com/