Parking Ticket Appeal

As a traffic lawyer, I mainly deal with drunk driving cases, but sometimes I might deal with a regular speeding ticket. Due to the legal fees and expense of appeals, I have only appealed one speeding ticket from the city court. However, I recently learned of someone who appealed her legal issues all the way to the Kansas Court of Appeals.

Junction City woman, Mary Somrak, got a $55 parking ticket for slopping over the line in her parking space at a townhome complex. Yes, she appealed it all the way to the Kansas Court of Appeals.

She fought it because she didn't believe it was right for the city to write tickets in a private parking lot at 2 a.m. It was an especially outrageous thing for the city to do as the car she was supposedly parked to close to was her own second car.

Junction City apparently issued about $1,000 of parking tickets that evening and it is believed that they are using this simply as a means to get out of their serious debt problems which they were left in after the Mayor scandal and development scandal from awhile back.

City Commissioner Scott Johnson, opposed the appeal from the beginning and said, "It's just embarrassing. I think they feel a lot more confident going after a single mom than they do going after millionaires who ripped the city off."

Somrak appealed to District Court, and the judge did the right thing when he dismissed her ticket. Surprisingly, the City then appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals. The Court of appeals affirmed the District Court's decision.

If the city was bankrupt, how could they afford to spend all the time Appealing it to the Court of Appeals? Another example of government waste. As a DUI defense attorney, I have seen appeals for serious issues, but a parking ticket?!? Really?