Weddingbee boards

Hi bees,

I just wanted to write and update to the thread I posted here:

http://boards.weddingbee.com/topic/no-faith-in-the-legal-system-left-for-me-vent

I spoke with a couple of attorneys and it turns out I was right about a lot of my sentiments.  The judge engaged in misconduct in several ways:

All "evidence" presented in trial was hearsay.  He allowed his city attorney to deliver inadmissable "evidence" because they knew DH was unrepresented.  They took advantage of him.

He called the other party the "victim" throughout the trial.

He was irritable toward DH and never looked at him, while he turned to face the other party.

There were no witnesses and sure enough, the prosecutor had 10 "witnesses" there!  The attorney I spoke to said that that is what a prosecutor will do when they have nothing to go on, bring many irrelevant hearsay witnesses because they have nothing else.

The other attorney works in ILL, and she said that her judge would stop her if she tried to slip in inadmissable evidence in court.

So, we got unlucky with the judge, who used to work for the city's attorney office as an assistant attorney.  The entire thing was beyond our control.

The good thing is that we appealed.  It took me all day at the courthouse to get the papers turned in, because each and every clerk had "never seen the papers before!"  Apparently, most people do not appeal in municipal court, probably out of frustration or because they do now know any better or because they feel defeated.  The whole thing was purposely made difficult- you had to turn in the papers 3 different places, and pay twice what the ticket cost (max.) in the first place to appeal.  Nowhere is the information given, so I do not know how most people would figure everything out- if it took me 3 hours when I had an attorney on the phone guiding me.  

So, just wanted to give an update and thank you for the support.  All of this is inspiring me to vote, to get involved with local politics, and who knows, maybe I'll attend law school one day.