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This Louisiana Town Runs Largely on Traffic Fines. The Mayor Is Your Judge.
- teddyh 3y agoThat town is apparently Nothing But Trouble.
- underseacables 3y agoI heard a joke once: "they don't stand for corruption in Louisiana, they demand it."
- Obscurity4340 3y agoIs there, like, anything GOOD about Louisiana?
- dottrap 3y agoThe food, including Cajun & Creole, crawfish, The French Quarter, Mardi Gras, voodoo, bayous, the music (birthplace of jazz), Louis Armstrong, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, salt domes/caverns (which is why much of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is located there), the template for haunted mansions and graveyards. Happy Turducken Day :)
- trilbyglens 3y agoAlmost entirely aspects of black culture, which is still extremely persecuted there. The south is still extremely backwards.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoCan you elaborate? I count 3-4 out of 12 items in that list as being specific to black culture. And AFAIK they're celebrated there, not persecuted (perhaps with the exception of voodoo.)
- Obscurity4340 3y ago> Aspects of black culture Are you implying pathological cultural appropriation or is there another aspect I'm missing between the lines here? Like, black culture is part of the larger homogenous culture, no?
- CoastalCoder 3y agoDid you maybe intend to reply to the GP?
- Obscurity4340 3y agoYess
- Obscurity4340 3y agoYou forgot "Your Honor"
- mandeepj 3y agoNOLA! Love that city. It has everything- food, music, and drinks.
- pnut 3y agoDrive through daquiri bars
- Obscurity4340 3y agoThis CAN't be a thing...?!
- rascul 3y agoIt is. There are also drive through beer stores.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoThat, to me, while ostensibly outrageous on the face, still kinda makes sense to me even tho its weird there's no technically drive through grocery shopping. Maybe a place like in Las Vegas where Michael Jackson was buying all the crazy-expensive art would have a wing dedicated to that but wow. We all like the sauce a little too much, but most of us wouldn't be seriously perusing this "resource" and I hope its customers are "ok"...
- CoastalCoder 3y agoI've worked with some absolutely lovely people at Stennis Space Center / NOAA, who I believe live(d?) in Louisiana. It's sometimes unfair (and inaccurate) to paint with such a broad brush.
- Obscurity4340 3y agoYa, but I don't see any harm in getting people talking resulting in all these NICE things surfacing Edit: nice Spaces, I agree as well
- MandieD 3y agoThere are three Louisianas: - New Orleans - Cajun Country - Eastern East Texas/southern Arkansas The first two are the source of many unique, wonderful aspects of American culture. The third is the source of this mayor/judge, a petrochemical regulatory regime that makes Texas producers envious, and the current Speaker of the House.
- genewitch 3y agoI vacillate between liking it here and hating it here. I'm currently middling between; but we certainly hope you enjoy our peppers and hot sauce (buffalo wing sauce originated here, and tobasco peppers are grown here, with the sauce named such manufactured here), whisky, soybeans, cotton, feed corn, sugarcane, music (not just zydeco and jazz, but Dirty Southern Rap, etc,) wood, and oil refineries. We don't enjoy that last one so much as they don't pay taxes and leave the citizens to rot and choke. And the biggest thing about louisiana that is "good": It isn't Texas. As i've always said, you feel like wasting exactly 24 hours sometime, drive I-10 through texas.
- dvh 3y agoReminds me of Morelaw town in Interstate 60
- wizerdrobe 3y agoSimilarly, Town of Hanging Rock, Ohio
- danielfoster 3y agoI read this article a few days ago and was shocked that something like this could occur. At the same time, all the tickets referenced by ProPublica were very clear cases of speeding: - "A ticket for 81 in a 50" - "61 mph in a 50 mph zone" - "driving 71 mph in a 50" - "65 in a 50 mph zone" It does not seem as though ProPublica was able to pull any cases where drivers were just a few mph over the limit. The mayor definitely should not be the judge. The town should not be threatening people with license revocations, either. But you could say that Fenton just really cares about public safety. The solution here is pretty simple-- watch the road and follow the speed limit. I also don't know why the state is still processing license suspensions from Fenton. Louisiana should simply stop processing these requests.
- ZeroGravitas 3y agoRelevant context: > That enforcement is particularly active on the north side of town, where U.S. Route 165 shifts from a divided highway to a five-lane road. Just before drivers reach a welcome sign, the speed limit drops from 65 mph to 50. Police cruisers often wait nearby, in a stand of trees across from a small roadside cemetery.
- danielfoster 3y agoI considered this as well before writing my comment and it's a very good point. Keep in mind that half the tickets cited in the article were over 65 mph, so they also would have been above the speed limit even without the change. The disappearance of the divider and merging of the traffic lanes, which drivers should be able to see well ahead of time, are also very clear indicators that they are entering a town and should slow down. Louisiana has many small highways like Route 165 where the speed limit changes in towns. Having grown up in the state, I know of many speed traps like Fenton. Most people would know to reduce their speed. However, Louisiana has little traffic enforcement in general and speeding on rural roads is very common. The state should definitely put up more signs outside the town warning them to slow down. More warnings should be issued rather than tickets as well. But Louisiana also needs to improve its driving.
- PrimeMcFly 3y agoThis doesn't seem nearly as bad to me as the abuse of civil forfeiture laws. American police are something else.
- janandonly 3y ago> Municipal judges must hold a law degree and pass the bar; a mayor can preside over court without meeting any qualifications. Yet, like a municipal judge, a mayor can impose fines or sentence people to jail. > Mayor’s courts must ensure defendants have fair trials. But unlike other courts in the state, they aren’t subject to rules like the Code of Criminal Procedure that are supposed to ensure courts are run fairly and properly. This doesn’t seem ill intent or fraudulent to me. Just al lot of incompetence.
- mrpopo 3y agoSo, they found no evidence of corruption, and everybody was speeding through the town. Maybe the system should be fixed to avoid obvious conflicts of interest, but this rather looks like another case of failed US infrastructure. There shouldn't be a highway cutting straight through a village with no protection.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoI see this as a failure of responsibility on the part of the drivers: The rules were clear, and well-justified, but the drivers chose to ignore them. (I recognize that this position is tied to my personal views on civics and ethics, so I don't expect people to agree with me.)
- mrpopo 3y agoDrivers still have personal responsibility, I absolutely agree with that. Regardless, any infrastructure where drivers can transgress rules easily is bad infrastructure. This is the case here. The highway runs straight through, the protection is non-existent (not a single fence), signaling is just small panels (no road markings, no overhead signs, no blinking bright lights), access to the highway is done via stop signs. This is a blatant cheap job that shouldn't be fixed with police patrols and speed trap town rumors.
- jbstack 3y agoThe rules may be clear and well-justified, but due process exists for a reason. The state should still have to prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that you actually broke those rules, and the decision as to whether the burden of proof has been met should not be made by someone who stands to gain something by deciding in the affirmative. "Not only must Justice be done; it must also be seen to be done." [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Sussex_Justices,_ex_parte_McCarthy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Sussex_Justices,_ex_parte_...
- CoastalCoder 3y agoIs there doubt about due process in this situation? Or are you arguing more generally about the low bar for administrative law-based sanctions in the US?
- extraduder_ire 3y agoThough there's probably better examples, this article reminds me of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Athens_%281946%29
- ChrisMarshallNY 3y agoThis sounds dodgy, but not really illegal. I know there’s a town in Florida, where the cops sit in the median, with a black hair dryer, and pull people over, and another town in Texas, that is infamous for using civil forfeiture on people of color. I think that town was featured in a news show. These towns don’t have “police.” They have “POE-leece.”
- yieldcrv 3y agoI’ve been looking into tiny municipalities They're basically like startups and with semi public bylaws You can form or takeover any one you want, and just pass laws that favor you for your term. You can vote out salary caps, you can vote in to delegate that decision to yourself. You literally just property tax some warehouses and railroad tracks and pay yourself! This is what people meant by Land of Opportunity because it was about the land, not jobs Its still true
- ahepp 3y agoThis article is bizarre. ProPublica really took four trips to a town of 220 people with > four journalists toting notebooks and a video camera, driving around town, flying a drone overhead, watching police officers wait for speeders. and all they could dig up is "the mayor shouldn't be the judge of this traffic court"? Sure. It's a town of 200 people. On the scale of abuses of power going on in hick towns, this doesn't even register. Is this really what "holding power to account" looks like?
- skulk 3y agoSo because there are only 220 of them, they don't matter? Sure, propublica has bigger fish to fry but I appreciate this look into a community and power structure that we might never ever get to see otherwise.
- marcus0x62 3y agoIn Arkansas, they passed a law that limits these municipalities from collecting more than 50% of their revenue from traffic citations. It had been a problem for years, but only passed after a police officer, who was both out of his jurisdiction and violating a court order enjoining his department from issuing traffic citations, beat a man to death after the man saw his friend getting a ticket and stopped to let his friend know the ticket was invalid and that he could get it dismissed.
- SomeHacker44 3y agoEven that seems excessive. How about 5%? Or not allowing the funds from citations to be used for municipal benefit at all? Have them go to a victim compensation program, or a halfway house, or medical welfare, or children's food, or something. Just saying the incentives are wrong here.
- marcus0x62 3y ago> How about 5%? Or not allowing the funds from citations to be used for municipal benefit at all? Sounds good, but I doubt any government would go for that. > Have them go to a victim compensation program, That assumes there are any “victims” associated with the citations in question.
- moribvndvs 3y agoI just learned my state is the the only other one that has mayor’s courts, or that mayor’s courts were special thing. I guess I just thought misdemeanors were handled this way everywhere. It also explains why the experience I had of a speeding ticket I got out of state was so jarring compared to local. Interesting reading: https://www.acluohio.org/en/news/what-mayors-court https://www.acluohio.org/en/news/what-mayors-court In particular: > Magistrates and mayors hear cases at a fast pace and they often rush people into pleading “no contest” or “guilty” and do not give due consideration to people’s explanation of their case when they plead “not guilty.” There is no one to advise or speak on behalf of the defendant unless the defendant hires their own lawyer. This helps mayor’s courts pressure defendants into pleading guilty or no contest, even if they are not guilty of the charges against them. Absolutely my (limited) experience. The verdict was basically handed out with the ticket so if you choose (or have to) go to court, the only thing you get is court fees for the privilege of being rushed through a proceeding that’s scheduled in bulk. Whereas a ticket I got in NY, there was much more ado and it was a slow, irritating process (even to just plead guilty and pay my fine).