Did It Work?
June 29th, 2012 by John Mansfield
What I want to know is: How many overdue books and videos have since been turned in by patrons of the Portales Public Library? If any of the Twilight stuff is still out, another example may be needed. (KRQE)
Bookslinger
June 29, 2012
As is usual in this kind of story, the arrest wasn’t for the original infraction, the arrest was for “failure to appear” in the matter of the original infraction, which itself had been compounded by her not paying the overdue fines.
In the woman’s defense, the court’s demand to appear had been sent to the wrong address.
I also note that her children spent the night with a neighbor (whom the children didn’t know) rather than the woman’s husband, who it appears may have been arrested at the same time for an unrelated matter. Not a stable situation from the get go.
John Mansfield
June 29, 2012
True enough about “failure to appear.” It’s a bit worrisome that trivial little things can be compounded into bigger trouble on the general theme of “you didn’t do what you were told, because we do the telling.” (Also of such note was Roger Clemens going to federal court on the charge of lying to Congress, one of the most asymetric laws I’ve heard of; being lied to by Congress never causes anyone to be charged with a crime.) I’m supposing her attorney(!) that was quoted was court appointed. Portales is going to be out a lot more money handling this then if they’d written off the book and disk, so the value of this event to society is putting a scofflaw in her place and letting the rest of them know how things are done.
Vader
June 29, 2012
You think she’s being treated … unfairly?