Brisk Repartee, a Bit of Humor Brighten Day in Traffic Court

The defendant was asleep, snoring quietly on one of the hard wooden benches that line the huge courtroom.

This could get you in trouble in other courts--nasty glances from the jury, a stern lecture from the judge, an elbow in the ribs from other defendants.

But not here. There was no jury, the judge ignored the sleeping man’s snores and the other defendants simply got up and walked around him when it was their turn to face the bench.

It’s like that in Division 60 of the Los Angeles County Municipal Court system.

Division 60 is an arraignment court for traffic violations, where quick justice is administered five days a week to about 400 people a day for such relatively minor infractions of the Motor Vehicle Code as speeding, rolling through a stop sign, driving without an up-to-date license.

There are 24 municipal courts in the county--each with its own traffic court--and the Los Angeles Municipal Court has branches in West Los Angeles, Van Nuys, San Pedro and San Fernando, but downtown’s is the largest, processing more than 30,000 violations each month, and bringing more than $25 million a year into government coffers, according to veteran Chief Clerk Helen Nelson.

There is a lot more to the eight-story Traffic Courts Building at 1945 S. Hill St. than Division 60. There are the windows on the first floor where drivers can pay tickets and settle warrants for overdue tickets. There are 16 courtrooms scattered around the building for alleged violators who insist on their right to trials, manned by 16 judges and commissioners. There are 147 workers in the clerk’s office, dealing with the unending flow of paper work. A majority of those 30,000 tickets a month are handled by mail or at the windows.

But Division 60, a modern, nondescript courtroom that seats several hundred, is where the action is.

Presiding over it is Commissioner Allan B. Lasher, dispensing justice at the rate of one defendant every minute or two with a mixture of humor and an occasional cheerful “good luck.”

Violators begin arriving early and fill the first half a dozen rows. There are mothers with crying babies, bikers with jackets bearing their club insignias, kids in blue jeans. Although sometimes a lawyer will appear representing a client who has the money to afford one, this is not a suit-and-tie kind of place.

The paper work is piled in front of Lasher, and the bailiffs direct the defendants, row by row, to stand up and form a line. If a defendant falls asleep, a smiling bailiff simply tells the others to quietly file out around him.

Awaiting Justice

One by one, they take their turn at justice. Some of it is done in Spanish with bilingual clerks translating. All of it is done quickly with Lasher leafing through traffic tickets, listening to the defendants’ stories, helping them to decide what they want to do and directing them to the appropriate clerk’s window to set a trial date, pay the fine or sign up for community service work in lieu of the fine.

The wait can range anywhere from 30 minutes to three hours, depending on the crush of customers. But, when a violator’s name is called, Lasher moves quickly. In fact, it sometimes resembles a speeded-up version of “Let’s Make a Deal”:

--”Going through a red light? Not guilty?” Lasher asks a reticent citizen who wants to go to trial. “Window 1 and leave a deposit of $61. You win, you get your money back. . . . Good luck.”

--”You have a whole mess of parking tickets. They (police) haven’t towed away your car yet? They did? Bad luck. So you want to pay them off? $290. Can you pay that today?” (The woman says she has to go to a relative to borrow the money.) “OK. Go to the cashier. . . . She’s open to 4:30.”

--To an undecided fellow who had already been assigned to traffic school once in the past year: “You can’t go to school again. Let’s fight this one. What do you have to lose? Let’s plead not guilty. $47 buys you out at Window 1.”

--Sympathizing with a plumber named Lee who had a bundle of parking tickets he hadn’t paid, Lasher tells the man: “The city has all those little cars (manned by parking enforcement civilian officers) running around now, and all those rules they haven’t enforced, they’re going to start. In fact, there is a memo out, go after Mr. Lee. If you see Mr. Lee’s truck parked, ticket it.” This brought smiles from the defendant, who knew Lasher was pulling his leg.

--To a man Lasher remembers for past violations and appearances before him, “You’re a very good customer. We appreciate your business.”

Justice Mixed With Humor

And so it goes, hour after hour, day after day. Lasher deals out the justice, leavened with humor.

Lasher is reluctant to talk much about himself. A 1960 graduate of UCLA Law School, he has been a commissioner--a lawyer who sits as a judge at a slightly lower salary--for 12 years, the last five of them in Division 60.

Lasher has worked other divisions of Los Angeles Municipal Court, but finds Division 60 the most pleasant. “This is an interesting place with a nice mix of people,” he said.

He said he tries to make the traffic court arraignment process as painless as possible. “Nobody likes being here. Nobody likes standing in line. Nobody likes paying traffic tickets,” he said. “But these are people here and they’re entitled to be treated decently.”

Much of Division 60’s work could be conducted by mail, but Lasher’s customers have their reasons for showing up in person, Chief Clerk Nelson said.

No Paper Trail

For one, some are “illegal aliens who come in and pay the ticket and get out.” She says aliens, fearful of being caught, seem to prefer to leave as small a paper trail as possible.

Other violators don’t have checking accounts and don’t pay their tickets by mail. Others, she adds, simply don’t trust the postal service to deliver their checks and keep their tickets from going to warrant, at which point if they’re stopped by police they could be arrested as scofflaws. Still others want to deal with a ticket quickly, more quickly than they can be waiting for the bail notice to arrive.

Whatever the reason, business never slows much for the clerks and Lasher. The doors open every day, Monday through Friday, at 9 a.m. and, after a lunch break, again at 1:30.

The bailiffs instruct defendants to sit in rows and wait for their names to be called. Spanish-speaking citizens gather toward the rear where they hear a translation from a bilingual clerk.

Lasher, a brisk but generally friendly and patient man, strides into the courtroom, dons his black robe, smiles and issues some general instructions.

This, says Lasher, is not a trial court; it’s an arraignment court, and “I’m going to tell you what you’re here for, as if you don’t already know.”

Guilty or Not Guilty

There are two options, he says, plead guilty or not guilty. It’s OK to plead not guilty because “trials are not complicated. . . . People do it all the time.”

But if you want a trial, when the trial date is set, be there and on time, he warns. “If you come in late, you miss the boat, you lose (the case).”

It’s hard to tell how much waiting around you’ll have to do, but it’s worth remembering that “the courts are very busy. . . . You could be in and out in 30 minutes or you could be here for three days.”

Please keep it short, he says. For instance, if you want to wipe the ticket from your record by going to traffic school, “don’t start by giving your life story, just say ‘traffic school.’ ”

Traffic school, he explains, is an option for those who simply want to plead guilty, pay the court $12 in fees and the private school its fees, ranging from $10 to $30 for a daylong course on the rules of good driving. In return, the conviction will be removed from court and Department of Motor Vehicles records, and insurance companies won’t increase the cost of your auto insurance.

‘Please Don’t Bore’

If it’s a citation for an equipment problem--inoperable lights or the like--”please don’t bore the other people in the courtroom by saying, ‘It’s not my car, it’s not my car.’ ”

If you’ve been cited for driving without a current license, “start thinking now about who you’re going to call to come and pick up your car. . . .”

The roll call begins:

A man comes with proof that he’s replaced a burned-out headlight, and the commissioner takes a look at the paper work, mumbles, “I don’t know, Mr. Villanova, some problem with lights on a Volkswagen,” and says, in dismissing the case, “I won’t charge you for that, goodby and good luck.”

A man who has been ticketed by California Highway Patrol officers for speeding on Interstate 210, quickly and decisively pleads not guilty, asks for a trial date and wins a smile from Lasher. “Not guilty--that’s what I like to hear,” he says. “Window No. 4. You win, you get your money back. . . .” Then another thought and another smile: “Where are you going to drag the officer in from? Azusa? That’s OK with me.”

Just Visiting

A young Mexican man, accused of driving without a valid California license, shows the judge his Mexican license. He claims he was just here visiting his grandparents, something he does every few months. “How respectful of you,” Lasher says, voiding the ticket. “Goodby and good luck.”

Defendants seem to appreciate Lasher’s fairness and humor. It would be an exaggeration to say Division 60 rings with laughter and good cheer, but more often than not, people seem to leave smiling.

Take, for instance, Frank Hutchins, in court to fight a $28 parking ticket. The burly truck driver had parked on North Grand Avenue near the Music Center the day of the Academy Awards. The street had been marked as a temporary no-parking zone.

He is here to plead guilty, but with an explanation. Hutchins claims that one sign at the end of the block had been tied to a post by rope and got turned around in the wind so it wasn’t visible. A second sign, he says, was blocked from his view by a large van.

Lasher hears him out, then dismisses the case.

A Happy Customer

Outside the courtroom, a happy Hutchins calls the commissioner “a fair man--he’s quite equitable.”

An artist was ordered to pay a $79 fine for a 2-year-old ticket--an illegal left turn. She was relieved.

“The judge was fair and kind of funny,” says the artist, who wants to be known only as Anna. “He could have thrown me in the slammer for that one ticket.”

Lasher’s humor lightens what for everyone--himself, bailiffs, clerks, defendants--is a boring process. Division 60 grinds on endlessly:

“You wanna do some work? . . . Window 4. . . . No problem, pay the $100. They’ll give you time on the rest. Window 2. . . . OK, Window No. 1 will get you a lucky date. . . . $35 at Window 2. You have a real good record. . . . Goodby and good luck.”