Even when a cop does the right thing, chances are pretty good that he’ll wind up in a jam. 

Cop pulls over a speeder on Route 1 in New Jersey, where the speed limit is 50 miles per hour.  The speeder, driving a 1994 Honda Accord, is an attractive middle age woman, who takes her lumps like a champ.  The radar showed her going 70-something, but she was cooperative.  So the cop writes her as driving 69, thus avoiding the jump in penalty and mandatory court appearance had he written her going 20+ miles over the speed limit.

So what, you ask?  This is the way it happens everyday.  These are the little niceties that a police officer does to lighten the load on an ordinary person, write ’em up but cut a few miles off the top.  No big deal.

True that.  Except when the woman happens to be the Attorney General of the State of New Jersey.

From the New York Times article, Anne M. Milgram comes out of this speeding scenario looking pretty good.  Sure, she was speeding, but regular, law-abiding people drive faster than they should from time to time.  It’s not a morality type offense.  At the same time, she didn’t pull rank, took her ticket and, curiously, was driving a 14 year old Honda.  How can you think ill of a big-time public official who’s so frugal as to drive a 14 year old Honda?

When the ticket was first reported, it was a mere curiosity, since Milgram’s predecessor,  Zulima V. Farber, had lost the AG post because she had 12 speeding tickets and 4 bench warrants for failure to appear.  She may have gone over the line.

The cop, David Krause, didn’t fare as well.  The problem stems from the ticket itself (shown below in a very cool viewer that let’s you zoom in on it) that has the number “69” written over a number that begins with a “7” in the portion that alleges the speed.  Now it’s a matter of “changing the speed,” which apparently smells different than having written in “69” in the first place.  Even though we all know that the “69” was a made-up speed to bring her in below 70 miles per hour, regardless of how fast she was driving.

A spokesman for Milgram says that the officer told her 69 in the first place, and it was always 69 as far as she was aware.  He was apparently unaware of her Miranda rights.

A spokesman for the North Brunswick Police Department, Lt. Roger Reinson, described Officer Krause as an outstanding, veteran officer. Officers have discretion, he said, in how they write up an offense, regardless what their speed guns might show.

“I don’t know the thought pattern of the officer and if he, in fact, he did the change the ticket, it’s still a four-point” violation, Lt. Reinson said.

[Update: Later today, Joseph Battaglia, deputy chief of the North Brunswick police, called to say that he had spoken to Officer Krause. “He said the speed was 69. He wrote 69, and advised her it was 69,’’ he said. “That ticket was not overwritten or anything like that.’’]

What is it?  The ticket is obviously overwritten.  Take a look, there it is.  A mistake?  Not likely.  An exercise of discretion, as might be done for anyone in that situation?  There’s nothing wrong with that. 

The initial reaction of the police spokesman, noting that the officer has some leeway, seems to be a perfectly fine response.  Why couldn’t they just leave it at that?  Why insist that an obviously overwritten ticket isn’t overwritten? 

P.O. Krause did his job.  He stopped a speeder and wrote her.  He exercised discretion for someone who didn’t present a problem and has an otherwise unblemished record.  If he was playing favorites, he could have let her go without a ticket at all.  He has that discretion too, unless he does so because of the AG’s assertion of her position, which changes everything.  From all accounts, she didn’t try to pull rank and he didn’t salute her.

I’m not suggesting that Krause get a medal for doing his job.  He gets a paycheck, and that’s sufficient.  But he performed his job properly and well, and leave the guy alone.

As for Milgram, one has to wonder what she was doing driving a 1994 Honda Accord?  Doesn’t the attorney general of New Jersey get a decent car as part of the compensation package?