Posted by Maria on April 17, 2001 at 16:35:28:
unfortunatly we live in a country that does not have the greatest judicial system. it seems that slaps on the wrists and warnings are the heaviest things we can levy on crimes. this should be no suprise to anyone. With that being said, I would like to commend Judge Michael Omally, who presides over the county of Tiger Falls in my home state, for not backing down on a trial that ended 2 weeks ago. Mr Omally is a very smart man and a fair one, and I felt he handed out a perfect punishment to the guilty party. And in this case, the defendant was MY own 16 year old daughter Sherri. Here is the story. Sherri got her drivers liscense last November, but because of her age, could not drive past 9 oclock at night. One evening she was out with friends and was driving well past 11 pm(she was supposed to be spending the night at a friends house) anyway, they were pulled over for running a stop sign. The police officer was very nice and he gave her a warning and told her to get off the road and he would not ticket her. So Sherri and her friends went back to her friends house. an hour or so later some boys called up and wanted to meet the girls out. now this is after midnight and Sherri decides its ok to drive out again. On there way over to the boys house, the SAME police officer spots her and pulls her over again. this time he issues her a ticket to appear in court and also writes down on the ticket that he caught her earlier in the night. He follows her back to her friends house and warns them about going out again. Sherri decides she is not going to tell me about the ticket. Not one week later she is out joyriding with one of these boys and she is pulled over for going 75 in a 45. She gets another ticket. So in January, she has a friend bring her to court to face both charges. the judge (not Judge Omally) suspends her liscense for 90 days for the driving past 9 charge. Sherri did not tell me this and continues to drive. A week later, the is pulled over again for speeding. she then gets 2 tickets, one for sppeding and one for driving with a suspended liscense. she goes back to court in February for this, again I dont no about it. this time the judge gives her an ultimatum. a $350.00 fine or 15 hours of community service. Sherri chooses the community service and the judge orders her to perform the service at a heart run for charity going on in 2 weeks. he scehdules her for 8 hours on saturday and 7 on sunday. Sherri decides to not show up for the service. she thought it was alla big joke but by doing this, there was a warrant for her issued. then towards the end of march, she is pulled over for speeding AGAIN, and still has a suspended liscene. the cop ran her name and she was arrested. this is when i FINALLY found out. she told me the story and thought that by using her fake tears she would get out of it all. I decided to let Judge Omally deal with her. after several slaps on the wrist before I didnt expect much. But after she was found guilty, she was issued a very harsh punishment. First of all, Sherri was sentenced to 5 days in jail, which the judge made her serve the day after easter thru this friday because she is off from school. he then ordered her to pay a $500.00 fine and to perform 50 hours of community service during her summer vacation. and to top it all off, she has lost her liscence for 36 months. a neighbotr of mine thought this was to harsh but I said NO! I TOTALLY agree with it! Sherri has an attitude that because she is attractive and popular she can get away with whatever she wants and she has to learn that she cant. she cried all Sunday night knowing that first thing in the morning she had to report to the police station and "check in" to her jail cell. she will spend her entire spring break cooped up in a detention cell and do nothing but think about what she did. she will have to use all of her money to pay the fine. she will spend a great deal of her summer vacation cleaning toilets and such and will have to ask for rides for 3 years. I say, Bravo Judge Omally, if there were more tough law enforcers like you around, maybe the world would not be in such a state. Belive me, I LOVE my daughter unconditionally, but Iagree with her punishment totally