« "The Heroes of the Right of Self Defense" | Main | For reference re: justifiable homicide »

$100 traffic citation removed to US District Court

Washington, DC. Federal employee gets into a minor fender-bender, gets a $100 traffic ticket. Alleging he was on duty at the time, the Dept of Justice appears on his behalf and gets the traffic ticket removed to U.S. District Court. (It later reconsidered).

Egad -- the power of the Feds to "remove" a case to Federal Court arises under Article III §2. But that relates to cases "arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and Treaties made," not to local traffic rules. It also covers "controversies to which the United States shall be a party," but the US didn't get the traffic citation. On a policy level, removal is meant to protect a Federal official against getting railroaded in State court for doing his job. A traffic citation in a D.C. court hardly falls into that class.

A friend had a case where a lady sued the Post Office, before it became semi-independent, for failure to deliver a sporting event ticket. It was a minor case filed in small claims court. The Feds removed it to Federal District Court. He told the Ass't US Attorney that he could have settled the case for less public expense than it took to file the motion, and asked why a Federal District Judge (of whom there are only a few here, probably only 2-3 back then) should be tied up hearing a case involving a few hundred dollars. He got nowhere.