This is a fabulous story!!!! The magistrate!!! I got pulled over in N Carolina mountains one time heading to the casino...we were smoking a joint had a Henry left, maybe. It was the most bizarre "arrest" ever. First off, no handcuffs, second off, we sat in the front seats of both cop cars. Thirdly, they intercommed each other and said to pull over and give me the "stuff". My friend got in the back seat of the one car I was in the front of already and the other cop gave the other one, our weed. We went to the precinct where we awaited the magistrate. We sat on top of tables in a conference room. Bullshitted with the cops. One was clearly a past football player who didn't get to the big leagues.. I called him a redneck.. we laughed...Then, in walked what seemed to be the spawn of two fathers, Willie Nelson and Kris Kringle. He said why didn't you just throw it out the window, that's what I do...I said uh I guess I just didn't think of it. He said to come back to court in 2 weeks. We had no way back to our car.. no taxis in the mountains.. I asked the football cop how we get back to our car...he said walk...I rolled my eyes, asked if he was serious, and we started walking. About an 1/8th of a mile down the road we saw lights behind us. The cop picked us up and drove us back to the car. We went to the casino out of pot, and walked by the tables looking for someone that looked liked they smoked to get more weed...we found a joint worth...2 weeks later, we walked in the court room and the officers we had screamed out and waved, hey-its Cheech and Chong!!! When they called us up, one cop wrote on a piece of paper "who's the redneck now!". We paid a 200 buck ticket and left.A $2,500 spanking - extreme even in that time.
Reminds me of when I was in my first year of college, 1974. The cops raided my apt because I had a full-sized 4-foot tall plastic 420 plant planted in a metal garbage can on the balcony deck facing the parking lot. They confiscated it - can you believe that - confiscated a plastic cannabis plant. Their "exigent" and potentially illegal search turned up no other elicit "goods" (besides a framed hand-sized actual 420 leaf under glass). I was neither cited nor arrested. The cops would not give me a receipt for the property taken, even though I asked.
I journal-ed the entire "Barney Fife" episode and got an "A" in Speech class for the work. Dang though...that plastic plant looked absolutely REAL. Friends used to come to the apt and have to touch it before they would believe it was only made of plastic. I was the "talk" of the apt complex - in a good way.
I later went down to the local magistrate and asked him if I could have my plastic plant back. He said "yeah, but you would have to sue the cops and the city". He said he was the only city judge in that small town and I had a right to get my plastic plant personal property back. He encouraged me to do it. I later decided not to sue because I was a big 420 user in those days and I did not want to make an enemy of the local cops by embarrassing them in court by publicizing the fact that in their jurisdiction the police could not discern the difference between plastic and real 420.
Sometimes it is best to shut-up and keep your head down rather than have your head lowered for you by the local "nightstick justice".
Ohhh...what a misspent youth! LMAO!!!