There is a disturbing trend in this country of an increasing commingling of government powers. If laws are broken, they are supposed to be enforced. Cops shouldn't be making decisions about which crimes or violations are prosecuted and which are not. A cop deciding to give you a verbal warning for a traffic violation is problematic because they are acting in the role of the judiciary, deciding that under the current situation the law broken doesn't deserve enforcing.

If a judge abuses their judicial powers, there are systems in place which will hopefully document and punish them for the abuse. No such system exists for cops acting as judge. If black or hispanic or poor defendants consistently get convicted more often and receive harsher punishments than middle or upper class white defendants committing the same crimes, that is clearly in the record and if we as a society cared, we could make a stink about it. What is much more insidious is a cop deciding that certain types of people (the elderly, mothers with children, provocatively dressed women) deserve being let off with a warning more often than others. Or that white middle class teenagers should have their dime bag confiscated and let off with a stern lecture while the poor black teenagers should get cuffed and stuffed for the same offense. Or that cops are above certain laws.

My rant aside though, I think the characterization of "NO DEAL" written on tickets is incorrect. My suspicion is that the message is for the prosecutor (who would make the deal) and not the judge. In general, I don't have a big problem with that and in this case it might be appropriate. My read on this story is that Christie was trying very hard to leverage his position to get special treatment and was enough of an ass about it that the cop wanted to make sure it didn't happen. It might have been a bit of a power trip but I still have a hard time taking issue with the powerful having to follow the same laws as everybody else.

The guy was pulled over for doing 58 in a 40mph zone. He had no registration because he didn't bother to send in his renewal form or go to the DMV to pick up his new license plate stickers. He had no insurance card because he didn't bother to pay his car insurance bill. And then he tried to pull rank on the cop.

I don't know about you but to me that's more serious than just forgetting to put your registration card in your glove box. It sounds like the guy thinks rules are for little people.