Last week the Houston Chronicle ran a heartwarming story of how the City of Houston Municipal Courts were giving folks a few extra days to take care of their tickets due to the torrential rains last Thursday.
But then there's the incompetent side of the Municipal Court. Last Friday I had a client who was due to traffic court over a speeding ticket. Imagine my surprise when I arrived, looked through the docket sheet and couldn't find his name. I went deep into the bowels of the courthouse to find a computer I could look up his case to see what was going on.
It turns out his case wasn't on the docket for July 13 because he had been charged with failure to appear. Take a look at the Clerk's Certificate of Defendant's Failure to Appear and see if you can spot the problem...
Clerk's Certificate of Defendant's Failure to Appear
So we have a robo-signed affidavit in which a deputy court clerk is perjuring herself when she claims she was present when the matter was called on the docket. She perjures herself when she says my client didn't appear in the courtroom. She perjures herself further when she claims his name was "called in accordance with the law." Finally, she perjures herself when she claims he failed to answer after a reasonable period of time.
Oh, and did I fail to mention that a warrant was processed as well?
Will anyone have to face the music for this monumental screwup at 1400 Lubbock Street? What do you think?
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