Opinion ID: 7347067
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Count 1(A): Pennell

Text: In 2003, Judge Stanford was presiding over a criminal trial in which George Pennell was a juror. Pennell arrived late one day because he had been stopped and cited for speeding. Judge Stanford had emphasized to the jurors the importance of arriving on time. The judge testified, “I felt bad for the guy and here I am chewing on him. And in his mind, I’m the reason he got his traffic ticket to begin with, which is not really fair .... He’s doing his civic duty.” In open court, Judge Stanford offered to either suspend the fines or order traffic school with payment of only the county fee. Pennell chose traffic school. Judge Stanford was assigned to a criminal felony department during this and all of the proceedings that are the subject of this inquiry. Traffic tickets are not handled in his department unless they are trailing a criminal proceeding that is set in his department. In this instance, Judge Stanford or his clerk (presumably at his direction) monitored the court’s records for the ticket. The judge directed that Pennell’s citation be transferred to his department when it entered the system in August 2003. He then directed his clerk to waive all fines except the traffic school fee of $51.50. According to Judge Stanford, the county traffic school fee is mandatory. In September 2003, Pennell paid the county fee and was provided a traffic school notice. This is in contrast to a ticket he received in 2007, when he attended traffic school and paid the total bail amount of $305. The clerk who processed Pennell’s payment in 2003 did not recall ever seeing anyone else attending traffic school who paid only the county fee. Such a circumstance is “extremely rare and out of the ordinary.” Although the minutes describe the proceeding as “Hearing Held for Arraignment,” there was no arraignment and Pennell did not appear.