I've been in a local kind of mood lately. It's all the local stuff that's pissing me off, like this bleeding heart bullshit.
Probation fees unfairly punish poor, critics say
Get out the violins.
Sabrina Byrd's lack of money ultimately landed her a 17-day stay in the College Park Jail this summer.
WTF? Whatever did this poor victimized woman do?
Byrd, a 27-year-old single mother of three children, was cited by the south Fulton County city 11 times for allowing her three dogs to run the streets without a leash and for not having them vaccinated for rabies.
Don't get me started. Here we have a single mother of three children who is probably on public assistance for having children she couldn't afford and to top it off she has dogs that she can't afford to get vaccinated for rabies and guess whose fault that is?
She couldn't afford to pay the $852 in misdemeanor fines she had accumulated, so Municipal Court Judge George Barron put Byrd on probation and allowed her to pay the fines in 10 monthly installments. Because Byrd also would have to pay a $39 monthly fee to a private probation company, her monthly tab reached $124, according to legal documents filed on her behalf.
Boo fucking hoo! Wait for it. There's more.
Byrd, who is unemployed and receives food stamps and spotty child support payments, couldn't pay the fines, so she stopped showing up for her probation meetings. Eventually, she was arrested for violating her probation, and Barron sentenced her to 25 days in jail.
Actions have consequences. Enter the bleeding heart liberal.
Palmer Singleton, a lawyer for the Southern Center for Human Rights, contends that Byrd --- a soft-spoken woman who has no criminal record --- wouldn't have spent one day in jail if she could have come up with the $39-a-month probation fee. Singleton challenged Byrd's jailing in Fulton County Superior Court and alleged that her imprisonment for inability to pay a fine violated her constitutional rights to equal protection. She was released the day of the court filing.
Cry me a fucking river. Let's go back to the second paragraph of the story. She "was cited by the south Fulton County city 11 times for allowing her three dogs to run the streets without a leash and for not having them vaccinated for rabies. " She was cited 11 times! How many times does it take? She broke the fucking law 11 times! And now some bleeding heart liberal is bitching about how unfair it is for this stupid cow to actually have to pay these fines because she is poor. Aaarrrggghhh! But let's continue.
But Barron and others say that Byrd bears the responsibility of her predicament. The judge said this week that he jailed Byrd for her repeated flouting of the legal system, not for her failure to pay the probation fees. He said Byrd failed to appear for a court hearing to answer to the charges of violating the leash laws and also failed to appear for her probation meetings.
But judge, you don't understand. She's poor. She's a victim of society. It's unfair.
Even though Byrd is free, Singleton still maintains that the legal system focuses too much on punishing offenders, rather than helping them rectify the problems that got them in trouble. It wasn't until Singleton sought out the help of local pet stores and veterinarians that he was able to get Byrd's dogs spayed and vaccinated. One of the dogs was put to sleep while another was sent to a pet sanctuary in Utah. Byrd kept the mother of the two dogs, Ta-ta.
Rectify this, dipshit! All she had to do was keep the dogs on a leash. If she had done that, she could have probably gotten away without the vaccinations. And anyway, what is someone who can't even afford to feed her own kids doing with three dogs?
The rest of the story is typical bullshit about how unfair this is and how we're picking on the poor. Read it if you dare, but it will probably make you puke.
Bottom line: She broke the law 11 times. She's obviously a slow learner but as usual it's all our fault.
I'm glad I'm going on vacation for a week just to get away from stupid bullshit like this. And Diane, if you're reading this I hope I've pissed you off.