Cuffed, stuffed, and handled rough

One writer’s experience with jail, lawyers, court, and his grandmother

By Noah Bruce

We were driving up Congress Street at the base of Munjoy Hill when I saw the flashing blue lights in the rearview mirror. My wife and I had eaten dinner at Vientiane, the bargain Thai place off of Brighton, and we were on our way home. It was late March in Portland, and there was still snow on the banks of the road.

I pulled over, switched off the radio, got out my license, registration, and proof of insurance, and waited for the cop to approach. He took his time about it.

When he came up to the window he shined his flashlight into the car, the light dancing near our feet.

“Evening officer,” I said. I always call cops “officer” or “sir.”

“The reason I stopped you is I noticed your tags had expired. Can I see your license and registration?”

“Crap,” I thought, “the chickens have finally come home to roost.” I’d been pulled over twice since I moved to Maine, and neither time did the officer mention the expired plates. I’d been avoiding getting Maine registration since arriving here in September. Or, more accurately, I’d been avoiding the excise tax you have to pay before you are able to register your car. At two percent of the blue book value of my ’98 Camry, I figured I was going to owe at least $300.

Could I have afforded to register the car? Yes. But it would have meant cutting back on luxuries like haircuts, new winter socks, and Saturday night dinners at Granny’s Burritos, sacrifices I wasn’t ready to make.

Reluctantly, I handed over the documents. The cop informed me that my insurance card was also out of date by two weeks. I told him I was insured, I had simply forgotten to exchange the old insurance card for the new one. This was true.

He then informed me that my registration was overdue. A year overdue. He walked back to his vehicle. I guess he was

taking the incident pretty seriously because at this point reinforcements arrived in the form of another cop car with flashing lights. When the cop came back to my car he asked, “Why haven’t you registered your vehicle in Maine?”

I figured honesty was the best policy. “To tell you the truth, officer, I haven’t been able to afford the excise tax,” I said.

“Step out of the vehicle,” he said. I looked at Amrita. She raised her eyebrows at me. Note to self: when dealing with the police, honesty is not always the best policy.

When I stepped out of the vehicle, the cop told me to put my hands on the roof of my car. He patted me down. Then he checked my pockets. “Holy shit,” I thought. “Am I being arrested?”

Now if this has never happened to you, let me tell you, it is embarrassing. Here I was, on the busiest street in my neighborhood, with my hands on the hood of my car, cop patting me down. A small crowd had gathered outside George’s Tavern across the street, and inside every car that drove slowly by were pairs of eyes plastered to the window.

As the cop fished around in my jacket pocket, an intense look of interest approaching excitement crossed his face. He pulled something out of my pocket triumphantly, but upon inspection realized he had only found one of those little stay-fresh packets they put in new clothes, not the small sack of heroin he might have been expecting.

The cop began to move his hands towards a pair of handcuffs hanging from his belt. “You’re not going to arrest me?” I blurted out.

“In Maine, having your registration overdue by more than four months is a crime,” he said as he as grabbed my right wrist and maneuvered it into a cuff.

“Listen: I have my title in my glove compartment,” I said, thinking maybe they thought I stole the car or something. I was having a hard time believing I was being arrested for not registering my car.

“Your ownership of the vehicle was never in question,” he said. “Watch your head!” he told me as he helped me into the back of the car with his hand on my head.

Explanatory Interlude

A week after my arrest, the US Supreme Court ruled on the case of a Texas woman who was arrested for an even stupider reason — failing to wear her safety belt. She fought the arrest all the way to the highest court in the land, only to have them rule against her, saying cops can arrest people for minor traffic violations if they feel like it.

Later, I talked to Lieutenant Joseph Loughlin of the Portland Police Department. He said that in my situation it is the officer’s discretion to arrest and that, when they do, it’s usually to “ensure appearance in court,” the idea being that someone who is arrested is more likely to show up in court than someone who simply receives a summons. He said the fact that my registration was so out of date and that I didn’t have my updated insurance card may have influenced the officer’s decision.

In other words, the cop who arrested me might have thought I was a slack-ass who wouldn’t show up for his court date. A weak reason to take someone to jail, in my book.

More importantly, Loughlin said that having out-of-state plates might be a factor in deciding to arrest. Though I told the cop that I lived in the East End, I’m sure my Florida tags helped sink me.

Back to Our Story

The back of the police car had two bucket seats carved out of hard plastic. There was a plexiglass screen between the front and back with a sliding window just like in a cab.

When the cop got into the car, he told me my car was being impounded as it was now illegal to drive. “Listen,” I said, “can you pull up so I can speak to my wife? I’ve never been arrested before and she’s probably kind of freaked out.”

She was out of the car at this point and she looked worried. In India, where my wife is from, getting arrested is a crap shoot. Depending on who you are and who you know, it could mean sitting in a stinking cell for a few months, or it could be as simple as greasing a bureaucrat’s hand with a couple thousand rupees. Luckily, we were on my home turf where such rackets are not permitted.

“Just be chill baby,” I said trying to console.

“What’s going to happen?”

“I’m going to jail, and you have to bail me out.”

Turns out they made my wife walk home in the dark. The second cop refused to drive her home, telling her, “you can either walk or take a cab.”

Granted it was only a mile, mile and a half, walk to our apartment, but I’m not a huge fan of my wife walking home alone in the dark, and I consider it a dick move not to give an innocent person a ride home when her car is being impounded.

On the way to jail, we listened to the radio. The cop drove fast, accelerating hard onto the highway and even speeding a bit, I noticed with relish. He turned on the radio. We caught about half of “Dirty Work” by Steely Dan, but when Sheryl Crowe came on he turned it off.

“So, is the East End your beat?” I asked. No sense in being unfriendly.

“Yeah. East End and sometimes I’m in the Old Port.”

“Hmmm . . .” I said.

Do not pass go

We pulled into the garage at the Cumberland County Jail. The cop opened my door and told me to get out. A bearded man in handcuffs emerged from the car to our left.

“It was the girl!” he bellowed. “She hit me. She threw a clock at me. I have the scratch to show it. Look there on my leg.” The cop who was attending to him lifted up his pant leg and, sure enough, there was a nasty scratch. Then he led bearded man into the jail.

The cop who arrested me disappeared into the jail and I was met by a different, shorter officer. He undid my cuffs and led me into the jail. To my right was a large room with a long desk manned by five uniformed men and women. Opposite the desk was a sitting area facing a television, and at the far end of the room were four cells with glass doors. I could not see if anyone was in the cells. On my left was a small corridor.

“Turn around,” said the short cop. “Put your hands against the wall.”

He patted me down roughly. “Whoa!” I yelled as he jabbed his hand between my thigh and sensitives. He then led me into the corridor and took my mug shots.

Then I was told to sit in front of the television. I asked to make a phone call, but they said my wife had already called and was on her way. Cops was on TV; a nice coincidence I thought. After a segment wherein some drunk guy started swinging at the cops I realized this was probably not the most soothing program to show in a jail. If I was the sheriff, they’d have Mr. Rogers on a 24-hour loop.

“Time to go in the cell,” said one of the guards after 15 minutes. I was led into the cell at the end of the hall. All the other cells were empty save one that had a woman in it squatting on the ground and crying to herself.

The cell was about five feet by 10 feet. It had a wooden bench and behind a short concrete wall there was a toilet made of metal. Save some scraps of toilet paper on the floor and a little piss on the seat, it was relatively clean.

To my dismay, the bearded man was in the cell. So was another guy who was tall and looked to be in his mid-30s.

Strangely, none of us believed we deserved to be in jail.

“They got me for domestic violence,” said the bearded guy, his breath smelling of bottom-shelf vodka. “My girlfriend’s daughter called the cops on me, but she’s the one who hit me. Threw a clock at me, too. I got the scratch to prove it. She called the cops on my girlfriend, too.”

Turns out the crying woman in the cell next to ours was the girlfriend.

“I let her and her boyfriend live at my house out of the goodness of my heart. Well, I have news for them: Come tomorrow they can find their own damn place to live. Bitches!”

Soon after, a guard came and led bearded man away.

“Did he get bailed out?” I asked my cellmate.

“Him? No he’s going to get outfitted in orange.”

“Huh?”

“If you don’t get bailed out in an hour, they give you an orange uniform and put you in with gen-pop [That’s tough-guy, I’ve-been-in-jail-before-speak for “the rest of the inmates”]. Guys like that deserve to be in here, but me and you, we shouldn’t be in this hole.”

“Yeah,” I concurred.

This guy was in here for violating parole. Originally he had been charged with an OUI. Since then, though, he had been busted for marijuana. He told me the cops had it in for him since he was always riding his ATV on public property.

“You think you’re in here for something stupid?” I said. “They got me because I didn’t register my damn car.” Then I kicked the bench for emphasis.

“Noah!” shouted one of the guards. “Sorry!” I yelled with my hands up to show I meant no offense. Damn, it was weird being in a place where you can get in trouble all the time. Felt like third grade.

Finally, my wife showed up with a friend and they bailed me out. My bail was the $40 minimum. Anything over $40 you get back when show up for trial, but the $40 the bailbondsman keeps as his fee. Worse, before I left I was handed a bunch of paperwork detailing my fines and trial dates.

I was charged with three separate offenses. The first two were written up on what looked like a traffic ticket. The first of these, failure to provide proof of insurance carried a $123 fine. The second, evasion of excise taxes was going to cost me a whopping $575. In addition, I was charged with driving an unregistered motor vehicle which seemed to me pretty close to double jeopardy considering that if you evade excise taxes you will be driving an unregistered motor vehicle. This was a class E misdemeanor and would require my attendance in court and most likely cost even more money.

On top of this, I had to drop $50 in towing fees and pay the $250 or so in excise taxes and registration that I should have paid in the first place to get my car out of the impound lot.

I was beginning to think it would have been better if I had been arrested in India.

Social life of a suspect

It wasn’t long after I got home from the slammer that I had to deal with the social ramifications of my arrest. As luck would have it, everyone in the Phoenix office found out immediately about my arrest because our traffic coordinator happened to be one of those rubberneckers who drove by and witnessed my moment of shame jacked against the hood of my car with a cop’s hands in my pockets. For a week or two I was known as “the smooth criminal” around the office.

But the label as “the guy who got arrested for not registering his car” stuck beyond work. Now, if I had been arrested for something more serious, say smuggling weapons into the country, everyone would have kept their mouths shut. “Hey Noah, how’s the Uzi business? Rat-a-tat, Rat-a-tat!” would not have been appropriate.

But because my arrest was so stupid (both on my and the law’s part), most people thought it rather funny and appropriate for light social banter. On one hand, I didn’t mind, as it served as an easy conversation piece for people with whom I had little else to discuss. For instance, at the rehearsal dinner for a friend’s wedding, I was introduced by the father of the groom as, “Noah, our convict friend, who so bravely crossed state borders to make it here.” For the rest of the wedding, my arrest served as a nice icebreaker. On the other hand, it can get pretty tiring to tell the same damn story 50 times.

Worse was dealing with my family, specifically my grandmother. Right after the arrest, I told my folks what happened. We’re pretty close, and I generally keep them posted on what’s going on with me. For some reason, though, my mom decided to blab the news to my grandmother.

“Noah!” my grandmother shrieked when she called the next day, “we’ve been very worried about you.”

“There’s really nothing to worry about,” I said. “I mean this whole thing is a racket and a pain, but I’m not in any type of danger.”

“If you’re convicted you’ll have a criminal record,” she said somewhat breathlessly, “and you’ll have to reveal that when you go for a job.”

“Well, I don’t want to work for anyone that wouldn’t hire someone who drove an unregistered motor vehicle,” I countered wittily.

“It seems you’re taking a very cavalier approach to the whole thing.”

Then she proceeded to tell me that “I got what I deserved” and she “doesn’t feel sorry for me,” but that she “feels terrible for Amrita who had to walk all the way home by herself in the dark,” and “who did these police officers think they were doing that to a young woman?”

Apparently, before this incident, my grandmother believed in the inherent goodness of anyone in a police uniform. The fact that the Portland PD didn’t drive my wife home was a painful shattering of her illusions. I hope the Detroit policeman’s ball fund doesn’t suffer too much on account of me.

I find a legal champion (for free!)

The charge against me wasn’t serious, but I figured it was worth talking to a lawyer, if only because it might be cheaper to pay a lawyer if he could get rid of some of my fines.

So I asked some friends and around the office if anyone knew a good lawyer. My editor suggested I call his soccer buddy. The buddy didn’t handle this type of case, but he knew someone who did. I called this attorney, but he was too busy and suggested I call Neale Duffett, an attorney I had once interviewed for a story, but had never met in person.

Neale sounded sympathetic on the phone. He said, no, a silly misdemeanor wouldn’t hurt me if I tried to get a job, but that the bevy of fines seemed excessive. He agreed with me that driving an unregistered motor vehicle was pretty much the same thing as evading excise taxes.

He sounded like a good guy who could help me out, but cost was definitely an issue. “I’d like to hire you,” I said, “but I don’t have a lot of money. What would it cost to hire you, and do you think it would end up being cheaper than just going at it alone?”

There was a pause.

“Well, I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I think this is something you can handle by yourself, but it will help if I tell you what to do. I can do that for you as a pro bono thing.”

Egad! It’s not often in my life that I get stuff for free, and though I appreciate it, it generally makes me a little uncomfortable. For instance, one time, in this restaurant in Milan, Italy a bartender comp’ed our drinks while we were waiting for a table in his restaurant. Partly due to the language barrier, he had to tell me about five times that, yes, these drinks were on the house.

But this here was no dram of single malt scotch. This was a professional lawyer offering free advice, advice that normally must cost many beans an hour. What else could I do? I thanked him and accepted.

Court

My first court appearance was on May 17. Prior to this, I had a phone pow-wow with Neale. He explained to me that this was an arraignment wherein I would enter a plea. Basically, all I would have to do when called is walk up to the judge and say, “not guilty.”

Now, of course, I was guilty of driving an unregistered motor vehicle. But, Neale explained, you should always enter a plea of “not guilty” because then a whole range of options open up. For instance, after a “not guilty” plea, the court would provide me with the police records, and I might be able to contest the way I was arrested.

My arraignment was held in Courtroom One of the Cumberland County Courthouse. Courtroom One is a big room that seats several hundred people. It was nearly filled.

Figuring that impressions count in front of a judge, I wore a shirt and tie. This turned out to be unnecessary, as most of my fellow suspects were wearing jeans and T-shirts or the equivalent. In fact, aside from the lawyers, who were easy to pick out because they either sat in the front row or were whispering in the ears of their less well-dressed clients, I was the only person in the room wearing a tie. One guy, who looked somewhat like the bearded guy I met in jail, was wearing a T-shirt with a depiction of a fishing line, hook, and worm. It read, “Its not how deep you fish . . . It’s how you wiggle your worm!”

The judge, an older, balding white man, explained to the court about the three types of pleas — guilty, not guilty, and no contest. At times he had a hard time keeping the audience’s attention. Every time someone walked into the courtroom, half the court turned around.

“What’s going on up here is more important than anything going on at the back of the courtroom,” the judge admonished.

He also explained about the different classes of crimes. Driving an unregistered motor vehicle was a class E violation, the lowest class of crime but still punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1000 fine.

Then he started calling up the suspects. Whereas earlier, the judge had used a microphone to speak, at this point the mic was shut off, so, though the proceedings took place in front of a large, crowded room, what went down between suspect, judge, and district attorney was more or less private.

The judge, calling names in alphabetical order, got to me — Bruce, always at the front of the line in school — pretty quickly.

“You have been charged with driving an unregistered motor vehicle, how do you plead?”

“Not guilty your honor.”

“What was that?” he asked. I had mumbled the “not” part and come dangerously close to entering a guilty plea. Perhaps, like Doestoyevsky’s Raskolnikov, I burned deep down to reveal my guilt.

Or maybe not. “NOT guilty your honor.”

I was then handed a folder full of papers. These included the police records, which I turned over to Neale later in the week, and a plea bargain offer. The state, eager to get their mitts on my money with a minimum amount of hassle, offered a $100 fine if I would change my plea to guilty.

Not a bad deal if I didn’t have the two other fines hanging over my head. “No deal!” I yelled defiantly. Fortunately, I was standing alone on the sidewalk outside the courthouse.

Though Neale had said that he would just offer me advice, he ended up doing much more than that. First of all, I began receiving copies of letters sent from Neale’s office to the court. The first told the court Neale would be representing me. The next letter asked for a jury trial and made a motion to suppress evidence collected by the cops because my Miranda rights were violated — the cop had never read me my rights.

Having someone take care of this for me felt wonderful. I knew about the Miranda Rights, but my eighth-grade civics course never went over how to file a motion if the police violated them.

Before Neale, dealing with the judicial system had felt like fighting a duel without knowing how to use a sword. Neale, on the other hand was decked out in plate mail and trained in the arts of combat. Without him I would probably have just pled guilty like a sucker.

At my next court appearance, designed to discuss the motions Neale had made, I did nothing but sit next to Neale, who seemed to know all the lawyers, prosecuting and defense. When my name was called to make sure I had showed up, Neale rose in my place and answered for me.

After the judge had found out who had skipped their court date and dealt with a few poor saps who had plead guilty, he called a break. Neale, along with all the other defense lawyers, went to talk with the district attorneys, forming a buzzing little swarm of lawyers making deals.

It was some time before Neale returned. When he did, he said my case had been postponed another month, but it looked like the state was going to agree to hear all the charges — driving an unregistered vehicle, evasion of excise taxes, and failure to provide proof of insurance — at once, and would drop the pricey evasion if I plead guilty to the two cheaper offenses.

And that is just what happened. Neale tried to get me out of the insurance fine because, after all, I did have insurance, and I brought documentation to court to prove it. The DA, however, was having none of it. Though I was insured, I had to plead no contest to failure to provide proof of insurance and driving an unregistered motor vehicle. They dropped the evasion of excise taxes. The insurance fine cost me $123, and the unregistered was supposed to be only $100, but they tacked on a bogus 14 percent tax and $10 “service charge” for a grand total of $124.

Not only that though, as my grandmother feared, I’m now a man with a record.

Total cost of this unfortunate incident (not including $250 that I would have had to pay to register my car in the first place): $40 (unrefunded bail) + $50 (towing) + $123 (insurance fine) + $124 (unregistered motor vehicle) + shame and a criminal record (priceless) = $337 + undisclosed sum for a small token of appreciation for Neale.

Thankfully, Noah Bruce can not be reached at the Cumberland County Jail, but rather at nbruce@phx.com.