I Married A Criminal

It was finally the end of January and time for Josh and I to make our trek to Utah for a belated Christmas with family. We were super excited to go, and having made the decision to tell our family we were finally blessed with child we couldn't get there fast enough. Unfortunately... Josh was speeding just a tiny bit, and as his luck goes with coppers we were pulled over in Montana. (Heavy sigh)

That was when a fairly ordinary occurrence for us turned very not ordinary. After the cop took Josh's drivers licence and did his little research in his car he returned and asked Josh to get out of the car, As Josh was asking if there was a problem the cop placed him in handcuffs... And as Josh was being led away to his patrol car I heard him say that Josh's license was suspended. Then I sat in the car and waited and waited for the cop to give me my husband back, positive that there was a mistake. Unfortunately that never happened and instead he came back and told me I needed to follow him to the police station where he was going to book Josh.

So I need to back up a little. When we were driving away from Virginia for the final time a couple years back Josh was pulled over for speeding (go figure) and was given a ticket. He decided he wasn't going to pay said ticket because we were never going back to VA and it didn't matter to him because we were under the impression that doing that would only effect his licence in that state. Months later Josh received a threat in the mail from VA telling him that they would suspend his licence if he didn't pay up, so in the end he decided it wasn't worth the risk and paid the ticket. Apparently he was late and they suspended his licence anyway. We had no idea because he got another licence in Washington no problem, and we assumed he wouldn't be able to had they already suspended his old one. Guess we were wrong.

Josh got booked into jail for driving with a suspended licence, speeding 6 over, and failing to show proof of insurance (which we couldn't do because we had misplaced our insurance card and the internet wouldn't work in the canyon to pull it up online). His bail was set at about $600 and I was told he would have to stay two nights in jail, the requirement for driving with a suspended licence. Not stressful at all.

Luckily (I use this word liberally) they were able to get the traveling judge to come so Josh could plead his case that day. It took several hours, during which I grabbed some food from one of the 10 buildings in the entire town and hung out with Fiz. They wouldn't let me see Josh who just had to sit in a cell and wait. He was looking quite fabulous, might I add. Two nights before he had worked an overnight, after which we drove straight to Spokane so he could get more work done on his missing front tooth. We were both still in pajamas, he had a limp because of his broken leg, and he had left his flipper in the car making him toothless for his entire stay. The lady who helped book him was chatting with him and when his career came up she could hardly believe he was a doctor. Finally, after more than 4 hours, the judge showed up. Josh was chained and shackled, and I mean CHAINED and SHACKLED. Feet chained together, and a chain around his waste that his handcuffs were linked through. For a suspended licence... Seems necessary. After pleading his case we were able to post bail and they told us Josh could pay some jail somewhere else to spend his required two nights at another date. I can't even believe that's a thing.

Weeks later, Josh was giving a lesson in church and told the story of his arrest. He was blessed when a member offered the help of a lawyer friend from Montana. He helped Josh fight the charges arguing that we never knew Josh's licence was suspended. Had he known he would have taken care of the issue and never would have been driving. We ended up getting some of our lost money back, but most importantly Josh didn't have to spend the required 2 nights in jail for driving with a suspended licence since thy dropped the charge to driving without a valid licence. Technicalities. It was a terrible terrible experience, and one that opened our eyes to how bad our justice system is. If you want to hear our opinion on that you'll have to hit us up directly though. I've written enough.

Sadly we have no actual pictures of the incident, but here is a FABULOUS depiction of  our story. Our nieces Emory and Tessa built this mock up of Josh in jail while I was waiting for him. We're such good role models.