I remember in my 9th grade American government class, i pointed out that the 8th Amendment prohibits cruel AND unusual punishment, not cruel OR unusual punishment. My teacher initially said I was wrong, but the next day specifically announced to the whole class that I was, in fact, right and that he was wrong. That felt pretty good.
In the first crime bill passed by Congress, flogging was the punishment for larceny against the United States. No one objected on Constitutional grounds, so it's pretty clear that the AND was very deliberate.
I've worked in IT for almost 30 years. For the most part I trust computers but I also know that they make mistakes. That being the case, people look at me like I'm crazy when I say you should never allow a business/process to auto-debit your bank account.
@@gordonshumway7239 My favorite is response is "Well, if they mess up and take too much I can get it fixed." Yeah, maybe, but how long will that take and how much will it hurt you if they took everything you had?
I write automated IT procsses. There was likely not enough testing. Often business users don't like to test and then are shocked when problems show up.
I’m betting that they used the absurd amount as a placeholder for testing and somebody should notice the insane amount. The programmer probably only let numbers used in the box so the users don’t put a random q or something in the middle of a fine.
@@dercooneythis the government were talking about... probably is still the original COBOL (or older)... also, probably asked what should happen if the fine was over the max and no one ever got back to them, so it slipped through (obviously being facetious, Y2K cleared out most of that stuff)
I would imagine that the programmers used the absurd "placeholder" amount for the purpose of flagging errors during runtime testing. It's very likely that the field is drawing from a number field in a database server, so if the entry is empty, it returns NULL, which might break things, so they used a ridiculous number as a placeholder.
I appreciate your comment very much. I am a pretty fundamental person or I am analog in the digital world. However, when I used to teach people how to use an Excel spreadsheet and they would wonder what could possibly go wrong I would always say put $1 million in someplace and see where it shows up. That’ll show you if your formulas are working right or not. A very simple fix but showed a lot of problems with the other one being to hit the grave key and control I think which shows you every possible formula and every cell but I haven’t use that for about four years so I may be wrong but a great comment you made me laugh. Take care.
@@cjyoyodudethe reason it is an absurd number is to make sure it is treated as an error. You don't want a reasonable placeholder because it would not attract attention. There are better ways it could have been handled, but I don't know what limitations are in their system.
Well, I’ve sorted this list a couple times sometimes you come out first and sometimes Ben comes out first I could be doing something pretty wrong here but I thought been beach or maybe not. It doesn’t make a difference. U2 guys are always the head of the pack anyhow, and make everybody else look like a slouch take care and be well. It’s taco Tuesday :-)
Steve, I Googled it for you. In Sweden where traffic tickets are based on income a guy was busted for driving 125 MPH in a 20 MPH zone. His fine was 1.2 million dollars, a world record and one unhappy guy. I think that system would be great here but will never happen. Too many rich, speeding politicians.
Bezoz ever drives himself he would have to be the most careful man in the world. He probably get a driver and it come out of the drivers wages . If it ever happened here.😂
If I remember right Steve did a video on that one. Was a crazy one, however based on their income that wasn’t really that excessive. I think he was a CEO or something like that of a bigger corporation.
@@Embermist69 Steve actually did videos on two similar cases. One was 2 years ago with the title "Million Dollar Speeding Ticket?", where he discussed a few instances in Finland, and then also talked about the world record case. One minor correction to the OP, while the person who got the ticket was Swedish, the ticket and fine were in Switzerland. Another video Steve did was 4 months ago about a driver in Finland with the title "$129K Fine for Speeding 20 Over?!".
Hey Steve thanks for the School House Rock reference, took me back to them good 'ol days. When I think of how much I learned from those songs I can't help but feel sorry for kids today.
Because I've been in Georgia most of my life , I'm never surprised at the strange and unusual things that happen here . Keep up the good work Georgia .
Whenever I created a problem on the computer at work, the IT department always told me the problem was between the keyboard and the chair. If you want something messed up, introduced a computer into your process or people who don’t know how to use it.
@@ahettinger525 yes, I’ve heard that too more than once. What side is because I use Siri as voiceover. They have a bulletin board that they post some of my worst comments :-) thanks for your reply. It was great.
I worked in Information Technology for over 30 years and I can tell you that computer programs are written by a human being. The $1.4M place holder was put in the software by the programmer; and can be rewritten to say whatever the want it to say. As for the fine on the ticket stating $1.4M, I would classify that at cruel and unusual punishment. Whether it is the actual fine or not; stating it on the ticket could cause or trigger mental stress, anxiety, and other mental or physical problems.
@@darrencurry4429 likely database driven, and i would write a program for the authorized personnel to edit the fines and the code would check for too hi or to low values which would also be editable database field. and it should have wrote TBD for "to be determined" which also would come from a database field, that one would rarely change; i would think
Being from Georgia this headline was shoved before my eyes many times but having a sneaky suspicion you would feature it...I held off. You didn't disappoint!
What may have happened was a clerk, had accidentally put in a phone number in the ticket cost plus and a month of interest. if not other hidden fees for the ticket. The ticket was for 1,480,038.52... a possible Georgia phone number starts with 1-478.
I would guess that I am probably the contender to be the oldest here. I certainly can ever beat you to guys maybe once a year when your coffee’s running late :-) take care and enjoy the battle. It always makes this even more fun take care of yourselves be well.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 It can happen with hospitalizations. I was once hospitalized for 5-1/2 weeks. I fortunately had family getting my mail and bringing it to me when I was well enough to deal with it.
It might not violate the 8th Ammendment, but I think it would certainly violate the 1st Ammendment to compel someone to hold up a sign with a message determined by the court. Offering it as an alternative to jail time is one thing, but actually ordering it against the defendant's will would definitely be compelled speech.
You're forgetting that in your scenario, the person has been CONVICTED of a crime... which can and does lead to losing your rights (at least temporarily, while in jail/prison). Ever seen an inmate exercising his 2nd Amendment rights in prison? Obviously, judges can't just pick a person at random, and make them stand on the street corner with a sign (which WOULD be compelled speech). But that's not what's happening in your theoretical. Lastly, I think basically all sentences are 'ordered against the defendant's will'. That's why we have law enforcement.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 Being convicted of a crime absolutely does not negate your First Ammendment rights. If it did judges could sentence people to changing their religion etc.
Hire an attorney to argue that in the same fashion that the $1.4M is a place holder, that the accusation of 35 over is a wildly inflated computer generated place holder, and is thus entirely invalid.
A nice thought but the machine/system that caught him speeding so egregiously is not the same system that put in such an preposterous fine as a placeholder so I do not think your idea has a chance of working. A lawyer who is much smarter than I may be able to build a case that calls into question the competence of all the systems related to issuing fines based on the outrageous way this one system issued that ticket but I am not sure that is possible or would constitute a viable defence. I can forsee the possibility of the trial being delayed while the systems are audited and the guy losing his case once they are deemed to be working adequately though.
If not knowing the law is no excuse for breaking it, then not being able to code properly is no excuse to put 1.4 million in and the whole thing should be dismissed.
Oh that definitely makes sense, I did the same thing when working at a store when pricing things, stuff that hadn't been priced yet was all by default $1,000 in the computer system to prevent them from being purchased without us auditing the sales margin. A few times customers would bring up the inventory on the computer and be like whoa omg. Why is that so expensive? (And then I would have to fix it) They are definitely not making the software themselves, it would have been purchased from an outsourced business to business software provider and it's very common for fields to be 'sanitized' and refuse to accept anything that's not a valid dollar amount.
Some days programmers get bored and have a little fun with the code they write. One of my programmers did that on a financial report when someone forgot to enter a value causing a divide by zero error resulting in a message on the report instead of a value. I was called into the CEO’s office to explain what “FUBAR” meant.
FUBAR (F-ed Up Beyond All Recognition) entered into service in the US Army during WWII, and was popularized in the general public in the 1960's by Joseph Heller's novel _Catch-22._ I'm really surprised you had to explain this to anyone.
That would have scared me into at least 3 states away. Yesterday I saw a car with Utah plates, no year or month stickers, but I could see where they used to be. This in MN.
As a programmer, often it has to be pure numbers and the formatting is added later. My guess is that the reason they chose that as a place holder is because they thought someone would be seeing it and would see so many zeros and realize that it is a ridiculous amount. I think in this case the office that printed the ticket just didn't bother to proof read the ticket.
Based on the print stories it seems the 1.4 million number comes from $999,999 being the placeholder value for when the fine is not set, but then there are fees added by the state that are a percentage of the base fine... of course this means that fines in Georgia are just kind of inflated by 1.4 times the base value... which also doesn't make a ton of sense because why wouldn't you just set the fine at the actual value you want the fine to be.
Steve love your videos! The computer programmer filled in the amount as 999,999.99 as a place holder. Then the next step added in the court costs which was computed by using the 999,999.99 amount. That is how 400,000 was added. The programmer filled in the numeric field with 999,999.99 because most computer programs will issue an error if a numeric field has non-numeric data. That was a very bad decision. What they should have done if the amount was determined by the judge later was to redefine the field as alpha-numeric. Then put AMOUNT DETERMINED BY JUDGE or something like that on the ticket and then by-pass the calculation to add the court costs. Bad design and bad testing…
Steve, you are absolutely correct and the programmer had to get the programming approved by a supervisor who also had to have it approved by a department head, so they knew exactly what they were doing when this ticket was submitted to person that committed the infraction. Jack@$$$ they are.
What likely happened is when a specification was written they forgot about this situation where the fine is determined in the court. The programmer likely made no mistakes and built it to spec. Then they later realised this issue and just stick the huge value in as a placeholder while waiting for a change request to be approved to replace the fine amount with explanatory text. Not great for the poor dude getting the ticket though.
All they'd need is a flag that would be set if the fine were to be determined in court. Then if the flag is set, you print "To be determined" instead of a dollar amount.
There's a few items to consider here. 1. Once you're hired into the state, it's near impossible to let someone go. 2. Those hiring in IT don't always understand the job. In some cases it's a manager hired for managerial credentials, and no experience in the team they're managing (this was the case for me twice) 3. Sometimes management makes decisions NOT the techs (another case of speaking from experience) 4. Once a structure is implemented, it can be difficult to change (ex: add # only, then later needing special cases) However despite #4, why can't it just be "$1,000" since that's the max? Why not add a special field for say "max_value_placeholder" with a yes/no or 0/1 field where it defaults all old fines/values to zero and only acts for uncertain fines? Why not make the necessary changes so this doesn't happen? Because of incompetence, 100% agree with you here Steve. It's kind of sad. I'd have panicked if I saw that fine. What they did as a 'workaround' is simply unacceptable. At worst it should say $0 with a placeholder field that adds "Determined at court" or some verbiage like this, as you noted.
Government contracts are given based on who will give a kickback to the people controlling where the contract goes... not based on COMPETENCE to fulfill the contract.
I have worked a bit with legacy systems such as this, they likely used the leading legit bit in the fine db because that was what they had. Fines have a max of 1000 NOW but if you use that then in a short time you will be hunting down references to $1000 to change them to the new max and that opens a whole NEW can of worms if it's reference elsewhere for some reason and you change something that didn't need changing like a reference to $1000 needing an aproval for payroll or something. Also I have seen these systems and fines often live in the same space with BAIL. So while a fine of more than $1000 might be unreasonable, a bail of more than that would NOT. Also, this same system likely houses CRIMINAL and other offenses, I doubt they have a separate system for every kind of offense, so a housing fine or industry fine could well go into the hundreds of thousands. And with legacy systems using one of the digits in the fine amount may be the only choice as the database is FIXED and shared among many disparate systems. You can't just add a check box, when some of those systems ARE NOT UPDATABLE. Some (such as vendors) charge to add variables and many more complications. So programmers grab an existing bit in the system and make it mean what they want. That is probably the far left bit in the fine field that was not already in use programically. (The leading digit is probably + or - to differentiate payments and fines, the next digit might be bail or fine, etc.) And since we know the value, 1.4 million, I can tell you it was the 23rd digit past the decimal. Which tells me it was a double. Having worked with legacy systems I can almost SEE the code for this, it was quite the ingenious solution. Where it went wrong was the payment processor was not in the loop as to what that digit was for so when the gentleman went to try to pay it online, this happened. But the in house programmer would not likely have the authority to tell a vendor to change their system since that would cost $$$$$$$.
Really the problem is lack of complete user acceptance testing. The IT programmer may make a mistake, very true, HOWEVER, if the customer does not institute proper user acceptance testing the IT guy cannot correct it. most times the IT guy has no idea how folks use the product and had to guess. When I worked in IT, we demanded the costumer perform user acceptance testing as part of the contract.
As a former GA resident and charged with Reckless Driving. He can see upto 1 yr in jail. I had a $700 fine but got out with 24hrs community service,and a 8 hr driving class; got out with fees paying $1100. The issue I see with this is the "place holder" is a defacto contemp of court charge and or bail/bond.
At a place I used to work we would receive a pay adjustment notice towards the end of the year. The company decided to do a little in house programing to produce the annual document. The result was a form letter showing both the cost of living raise along with the merit increase. The software populated my merit increase as one cent per hour. Not exactly a morale booster. It was shortly thereafter that I received a memo from the boss apologizing for the implication that my effort was only worth an extra penny an hour. One of my fellow workers got a 3 cent per hour merit raise. Every so often he would remind me that his merit raise was three times as much as mine.
As a flawed person who does programming (and uses placeholders A LOT), you're correct that people made it, hence there are flaws. For something like this field though, I would use something like TBD on the backend as the placeholder - quick, easy, easy to recognize in code. Any placeholder that shows you need to inquire for more information is sensible, anything that gets a Steve Lehto video, not so much.
Most have no clue beyond 1st, 2nd, 4th, & 5th. I’ve yet to come across someone who can state even the basics of the THIRD. YES, I’m that guy who does ask people. Particularly when they spout off about something they think is in the Constitution.
People want to blame the computer programmers but they are not at fault, they are told exactly what information is to be written in designing the software. The State of Georgia did not just choose any program, it is not a stock program. I laughed so hard when you said" a completely assembled computer fell out of the sky " it reminded me of " The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy".
^ This. Not really any information to go on. Can't point the finger, but I would expect the software to be designed so the fee-schedule would be defined outside of the programming.
Not necessarily. It can be the instructions or it can be the developper. Also, 1.4M is a weird placeholder. I tried to see if it corresponds to any binary limit, but the closest is 134 millions, which would mwle sense as software often count in cents and not dollars. The only issue with that is that doesn't really round to 1.4M unless the reporter decided to round it up (in which case the actual ticket would have the detailed number 1,342,177.27). But that would still be weird because that's the biggest 27 bit number, or 28 bit number if negatives are allowed, and 27 and 28 bit numbers make no sense with today's computers that work with 8 bit sections (so a 28 bit number is still stored and processed as 32 bit in most cases).
My first thought when I heard $1.4 million speeding ticket and Georgia...Ed Bolian's is either going to have to sell one of his Lambos or he's going to get representation fron the Tixket Clinic.
'placeholder' my arse ! I'd fix their nonsense.....I would issue my own claim / law suit against the organisation who issued this ticket for extortion and fraud ! ...... Yeah , I'll see you in court alright ! See how they like that !
Hey Steve, like your programs thank you for what you do. Not to change the subject, but the civil forfeiture oh, isn't it pretty much the same thing as a bill of attainder?
It probably _should_ , but won't, because he has the "option" of showing up in court. This is essentially the same as $1.4mil in bail. Show up in court, or forfeit some amount of cash. Yes, the 8th amendment is also supposed to protect against excessive bail, but excessive is not defined. Bail in excess of 5 years pay is common, but the fact that you can get a loan at usurious rates (10% flat fee, so well over 100% APR) means the courts don't find that excessive. Remember, the process _is_ the punishment.
If they need a placeholder, why not put in the maximum allowable fee? That way when there's a mistake people may actually just pay it so they don't have to fight the bureaucracy?
7:10 Kind of like on King of the Hill where the judge commanded the would-be car thief who tried to steal Hank's truck to spending 30 days, I think it was in the cab of a pickup truck, an import.
I bet if they could have automatically deducted it from his bank account and he didnt notice theyd have stayed quiet. If he asked for it back they'd have refused until it made headlines.
![“อ.เบียร์ คนตื่นธรรม” มาตามคำเรียกร้อง แหกศาสตร์ฮวงจุ้ย เตือนสติอย่างมงาย | แฉ 7 พ.ย. 67 [1/3]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5fc4S3xBNfc/mqdefault.jpg)
I remember in my 9th grade American government class, i pointed out that the 8th Amendment prohibits cruel AND unusual punishment, not cruel OR unusual punishment. My teacher initially said I was wrong, but the next day specifically announced to the whole class that I was, in fact, right and that he was wrong. That felt pretty good.
Good to know. So we can be cruel if it becomes common place and we can use unusual punishments if they aren't cruel.
It is meant to be taken as and/or... either or both are invalid.
@@christopherkidwell9817where did you learn that?
@@NEPAAlchey there are plenty of examples of unusual punishments from creative judges which are not cruel. Steve has even covered some of them.
In the first crime bill passed by Congress, flogging was the punishment for larceny against the United States. No one objected on Constitutional grounds, so it's pretty clear that the AND was very deliberate.
"If the penalty for a crime is a fine, *that law only exists for the poor."*
Only IF there are not fines based upon income/assets.
@@testymann5045 it would need to be by percentage of expendable income to be fair
I've worked in IT for almost 30 years. For the most part I trust computers but I also know that they make mistakes. That being the case, people look at me like I'm crazy when I say you should never allow a business/process to auto-debit your bank account.
I am sooooo with you. NEVER let people direct debit your bank account!
I don't like it but in 2023 you don't have an option a lot of the time.
@@gordonshumway7239 My favorite is response is "Well, if they mess up and take too much I can get it fixed." Yeah, maybe, but how long will that take and how much will it hurt you if they took everything you had?
@@NEPAAlchey True. I do have one account that requires auto-pay but I was at least able to link that to my CC rather than my checking account.
I write automated IT procsses. There was likely not enough testing. Often business users don't like to test and then are shocked when problems show up.
Ben is checking the AWESOME plaque is still awesome.
I’m betting that they used the absurd amount as a placeholder for testing and somebody should notice the insane amount. The programmer probably only let numbers used in the box so the users don’t put a random q or something in the middle of a fine.
This is precisely the reason!
probably an old cobol system where that thing was a common practice
Wait, that's not common practice today?
@@CiaranMaxwell no, we have lots cheaper storage, so we can simply mark a field as null
@@dercooneythis the government were talking about... probably is still the original COBOL (or older)... also, probably asked what should happen if the fine was over the max and no one ever got back to them, so it slipped through (obviously being facetious, Y2K cleared out most of that stuff)
TBD - "to be determined" sound like a great thing to use :D
Simply "MANDATORY COURT APPEARANCE" would get the exact message they were trying to get across...well, across.
I would imagine that the programmers used the absurd "placeholder" amount for the purpose of flagging errors during runtime testing. It's very likely that the field is drawing from a number field in a database server, so if the entry is empty, it returns NULL, which might break things, so they used a ridiculous number as a placeholder.
I appreciate your comment very much. I am a pretty fundamental person or I am analog in the digital world. However, when I used to teach people how to use an Excel spreadsheet and they would wonder what could possibly go wrong I would always say put $1 million in someplace and see where it shows up. That’ll show you if your formulas are working right or not. A very simple fix but showed a lot of problems with the other one being to hit the grave key and control I think which shows you every possible formula and every cell but I haven’t use that for about four years so I may be wrong but a great comment you made me laugh. Take care.
@@keithe2150I am fundamentally a person as well.
Correct but they should correct the absurd number or use something like a try catch, or else if statement.
@@cjyoyodude Absolutely.
@@cjyoyodudethe reason it is an absurd number is to make sure it is treated as an error. You don't want a reasonable placeholder because it would not attract attention.
There are better ways it could have been handled, but I don't know what limitations are in their system.
Ben watching from the side... of Steve's head, Steve's RHS
Beat me again. 11 seconds
Well, I’ve sorted this list a couple times sometimes you come out first and sometimes Ben comes out first I could be doing something pretty wrong here but I thought been beach or maybe not. It doesn’t make a difference. U2 guys are always the head of the pack anyhow, and make everybody else look like a slouch take care and be well. It’s taco Tuesday :-)
@@keithe2150 Have good one too Keith
Steve, I Googled it for you. In Sweden where traffic tickets are based on income a guy was busted for driving 125 MPH in a 20 MPH zone. His fine was 1.2 million dollars, a world record and one unhappy guy. I think that system would be great here but will never happen. Too many rich, speeding politicians.
Bezoz ever drives himself he would have to be the most careful man in the world. He probably get a driver and it come out of the drivers wages . If it ever happened here.😂
If I remember right Steve did a video on that one. Was a crazy one, however based on their income that wasn’t really that excessive. I think he was a CEO or something like that of a bigger corporation.
@@Embermist69 Steve actually did videos on two similar cases. One was 2 years ago with the title "Million Dollar Speeding Ticket?", where he discussed a few instances in Finland, and then also talked about the world record case. One minor correction to the OP, while the person who got the ticket was Swedish, the ticket and fine were in Switzerland. Another video Steve did was 4 months ago about a driver in Finland with the title "$129K Fine for Speeding 20 Over?!".
How about this.......................obey the law.
@@clementthurn1992 That'll be the day!
He got a ticket in Savannah for driving like a cheetah 🐆
Cheetahs don't drive cars, though. That doesn't even make sense.
Actually he was driving a jaguar chasing a cheetah
Thank you for a good laugh.
@@actualwafflesenjoyer You're thinking of cougars!
Hey Steve thanks for the School House Rock reference, took me back to them good 'ol days. When I think of how much I learned from those songs I can't help but feel sorry for kids today.
Because I've been in Georgia most of my life , I'm never surprised at the strange and unusual things that happen here . Keep up the good work Georgia .
If one person sends in the 1 million I’m sure the government would not complain. 😂
Steve don't give them any idea's what other countries do. That would get your attention and ensure you would show up in court.😮😮😮😮
That's an unusual punishment, even cruel. If only we had something to protect people from absurd punishments. O wait...
Whenever I created a problem on the computer at work, the IT department always told me the problem was between the keyboard and the chair. If you want something messed up, introduced a computer into your process or people who don’t know how to use it.
This is called P.I.C.N.I.C. -- problem in chair, not in computer. Though I prefer "between the keyboard..."
Best regards.
id10t is the error code for this problem.
Also known as a PEBKAC error.
Error ID-10T
@@ahettinger525 yes, I’ve heard that too more than once. What side is because I use Siri as voiceover. They have a bulletin board that they post some of my worst comments :-) thanks for your reply. It was great.
I worked in Information Technology for over 30 years and I can tell you that computer programs are written by a human being. The $1.4M place holder was put in the software by the programmer; and can be rewritten to say whatever the want it to say. As for the fine on the ticket stating $1.4M, I would classify that at cruel and unusual punishment. Whether it is the actual fine or not; stating it on the ticket could cause or trigger mental stress, anxiety, and other mental or physical problems.
That is assuming the software has the fines hard-coded. While possible, I would expect the software to be designed so the layman can edit the fines.
@@darrencurry4429 likely database driven, and i would write a program for the authorized personnel to edit the fines and the code would check for too hi or to low values which would also be editable database field. and it should have wrote TBD for "to be determined" which also would come from a database field, that one would rarely change; i would think
Being from Georgia this headline was shoved before my eyes many times but having a sneaky suspicion you would feature it...I held off. You didn't disappoint!
What may have happened was a clerk, had accidentally put in a phone number in the ticket cost plus and a month of interest. if not other hidden fees for the ticket. The ticket was for 1,480,038.52... a possible Georgia phone number starts with 1-478.
This is most likely true. GREAT investigative work
Ben is directly behind Steve's head RHS
Out of practice ol' man?😎
Then you were quick on the trigger today
@@Bobs-Wrigles5555 is that the pot calling the kettle...?😆
@@BenLeitch Could be, could be...😁😁
I would guess that I am probably the contender to be the oldest here. I certainly can ever beat you to guys maybe once a year when your coffee’s running late :-) take care and enjoy the battle. It always makes this even more fun take care of yourselves be well.
The words "penalty pending" comes to mind
Imagine if you were out of town and missed the mail with the ticket beyond the point of time that it can be contested.
And you didn't forward your mail?
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 It can happen with hospitalizations. I was once hospitalized for 5-1/2 weeks.
I fortunately had family getting my mail and bringing it to me when I was well enough to deal with it.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 I'm not getting my mail forwarded when I'm on vacation?
That always made me laugh. Like calling a head on crash a vehicle error. It's always a error someone made not the computer.
Ben behind the Today will be awesome plaque.
It might not violate the 8th Ammendment, but I think it would certainly violate the 1st Ammendment to compel someone to hold up a sign with a message determined by the court. Offering it as an alternative to jail time is one thing, but actually ordering it against the defendant's will would definitely be compelled speech.
You are sentenced to stand on the corner of 1st and main holding a sign saying "Vote Joe Smith for municipal judge."
You're forgetting that in your scenario, the person has been CONVICTED of a crime... which can and does lead to losing your rights (at least temporarily, while in jail/prison). Ever seen an inmate exercising his 2nd Amendment rights in prison?
Obviously, judges can't just pick a person at random, and make them stand on the street corner with a sign (which WOULD be compelled speech). But that's not what's happening in your theoretical.
Lastly, I think basically all sentences are 'ordered against the defendant's will'. That's why we have law enforcement.
@@hxhdfjifzirstc894 Being convicted of a crime absolutely does not negate your First Ammendment rights. If it did judges could sentence people to changing their religion etc.
I was expecting another income based speeding fine from Finland. 😂
Hire an attorney to argue that in the same fashion that the $1.4M is a place holder, that the accusation of 35 over is a wildly inflated computer generated place holder, and is thus entirely invalid.
Good luck finding an attorney to do that
A nice thought but the machine/system that caught him speeding so egregiously is not the same system that put in such an preposterous fine as a placeholder so I do not think your idea has a chance of working. A lawyer who is much smarter than I may be able to build a case that calls into question the competence of all the systems related to issuing fines based on the outrageous way this one system issued that ticket but I am not sure that is possible or would constitute a viable defence. I can forsee the possibility of the trial being delayed while the systems are audited and the guy losing his case once they are deemed to be working adequately though.
Only if the points or avoiding jail time are worth the cost. That lawyer will cost more than the actual maximum fine.
Honestly, the name on the ticket seems to be a place holder, for the real driver.
If not knowing the law is no excuse for breaking it, then not being able to code properly is no excuse to put 1.4 million in and the whole thing should be dismissed.
Oh that definitely makes sense, I did the same thing when working at a store when pricing things, stuff that hadn't been priced yet was all by default $1,000 in the computer system to prevent them from being purchased without us auditing the sales margin. A few times customers would bring up the inventory on the computer and be like whoa omg. Why is that so expensive? (And then I would have to fix it)
They are definitely not making the software themselves, it would have been purchased from an outsourced business to business software provider and it's very common for fields to be 'sanitized' and refuse to accept anything that's not a valid dollar amount.
Ben at the rear of the Tucker.
Some days programmers get bored and have a little fun with the code they write. One of my programmers did that on a financial report when someone forgot to enter a value causing a divide by zero error resulting in a message on the report instead of a value. I was called into the CEO’s office to explain what “FUBAR” meant.
FUBAR (F-ed Up Beyond All Recognition) entered into service in the US Army during WWII, and was popularized in the general public in the 1960's by Joseph Heller's novel _Catch-22._ I'm really surprised you had to explain this to anyone.
@@ahettinger525 Gen Z'rs don't know this and are lucky to know anything useful since most of their education centers on liberal arts
Computers now also program computers as well welcome to our BRAVE NEW WORLD @stevelehto what could possibly go wrong??? LOL
Georgia. That explains a lot.
That would have scared me into at least 3 states away. Yesterday I saw a car with Utah plates, no year or month stickers, but I could see where they used to be. This in MN.
As a programmer, often it has to be pure numbers and the formatting is added later. My guess is that the reason they chose that as a place holder is because they thought someone would be seeing it and would see so many zeros and realize that it is a ridiculous amount. I think in this case the office that printed the ticket just didn't bother to proof read the ticket.
“TBD” (To Be Determined) was a pretty common term, once upon a time …
Based on the print stories it seems the 1.4 million number comes from $999,999 being the placeholder value for when the fine is not set, but then there are fees added by the state that are a percentage of the base fine... of course this means that fines in Georgia are just kind of inflated by 1.4 times the base value... which also doesn't make a ton of sense because why wouldn't you just set the fine at the actual value you want the fine to be.
That's makes more sense, but 40% in fees!!!! That's a fine in and by itself.
Ben behind steve head between tucker and 5 th mic
Steve love your videos! The computer programmer filled in the amount as 999,999.99 as a place holder. Then the next step added in the court costs which was computed by using the 999,999.99 amount. That is how 400,000 was added. The programmer filled in the numeric field with 999,999.99 because most computer programs will issue an error if a numeric field has non-numeric data. That was a very bad decision. What they should have done if the amount was determined by the judge later was to redefine the field as alpha-numeric. Then put AMOUNT DETERMINED BY JUDGE or something like that on the ticket and then by-pass the calculation to add the court costs. Bad design and bad testing…
That’s inflation for you
I'd have to ask the judge for a payment plan.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
WOW 😳, great explanation of this speeding ticket.thanks for your knowledge and fine video ✅
Back in the day we'd put in funny error messages meant only for internal use...but inevitably they would make it into the finally product. :P
Could be a basics for a law suit due to stress incurred here
'Wrong' amount for the fine, plus two people saying two different things about the 'fine'. Grounds for dismissal?
If you had to put a number as a place holder, isn't it better to put something so outrageous that it would be questioned?
How do you drive 35 over and not get immediately arrested?
Didn't Steve say they got the ticket in the mail? I assumed it was a traffic camera.
Traffic cam
They leave it blank here if they want you to appear. PA state police
Steve, you are absolutely correct and the programmer had to get the programming approved by a supervisor who also had to have it approved by a department head, so they knew exactly what they were doing when this ticket was submitted to person that committed the infraction. Jack@$$$ they are.
I am a programmer. People definitely do not always check my code for mistakes. Honestly, almost never 🤷♂️
Yep... the programming should have defaulted to 10 dollars at most for the fine unless another amount was inputted.
@@christopherkidwell9817I don't think you watched the video.
@@BackForwardPunchDo you happen to work for Runescape? Lol
What likely happened is when a specification was written they forgot about this situation where the fine is determined in the court. The programmer likely made no mistakes and built it to spec. Then they later realised this issue and just stick the huge value in as a placeholder while waiting for a change request to be approved to replace the fine amount with explanatory text. Not great for the poor dude getting the ticket though.
All they'd need is a flag that would be set if the fine were to be determined in court. Then if the flag is set, you print "To be determined" instead of a dollar amount.
If you mail the court a $1.4 million check for a speeding ticket, you probably won't be going to jail.
I prefer unusual to cruel punishments
That was a programmer that thought he would be funny.
There's a few items to consider here.
1. Once you're hired into the state, it's near impossible to let someone go.
2. Those hiring in IT don't always understand the job. In some cases it's a manager hired for managerial credentials, and no experience in the team they're managing (this was the case for me twice)
3. Sometimes management makes decisions NOT the techs (another case of speaking from experience)
4. Once a structure is implemented, it can be difficult to change (ex: add # only, then later needing special cases)
However despite #4, why can't it just be "$1,000" since that's the max? Why not add a special field for say "max_value_placeholder" with a yes/no or 0/1 field where it defaults all old fines/values to zero and only acts for uncertain fines? Why not make the necessary changes so this doesn't happen?
Because of incompetence, 100% agree with you here Steve. It's kind of sad. I'd have panicked if I saw that fine. What they did as a 'workaround' is simply unacceptable. At worst it should say $0 with a placeholder field that adds "Determined at court" or some verbiage like this, as you noted.
Government contracts are given based on who will give a kickback to the people controlling where the contract goes... not based on COMPETENCE to fulfill the contract.
I have worked a bit with legacy systems such as this, they likely used the leading legit bit in the fine db because that was what they had. Fines have a max of 1000 NOW but if you use that then in a short time you will be hunting down references to $1000 to change them to the new max and that opens a whole NEW can of worms if it's reference elsewhere for some reason and you change something that didn't need changing like a reference to $1000 needing an aproval for payroll or something. Also I have seen these systems and fines often live in the same space with BAIL. So while a fine of more than $1000 might be unreasonable, a bail of more than that would NOT. Also, this same system likely houses CRIMINAL and other offenses, I doubt they have a separate system for every kind of offense, so a housing fine or industry fine could well go into the hundreds of thousands. And with legacy systems using one of the digits in the fine amount may be the only choice as the database is FIXED and shared among many disparate systems. You can't just add a check box, when some of those systems ARE NOT UPDATABLE. Some (such as vendors) charge to add variables and many more complications. So programmers grab an existing bit in the system and make it mean what they want. That is probably the far left bit in the fine field that was not already in use programically. (The leading digit is probably + or - to differentiate payments and fines, the next digit might be bail or fine, etc.) And since we know the value, 1.4 million, I can tell you it was the 23rd digit past the decimal. Which tells me it was a double. Having worked with legacy systems I can almost SEE the code for this, it was quite the ingenious solution. Where it went wrong was the payment processor was not in the loop as to what that digit was for so when the gentleman went to try to pay it online, this happened. But the in house programmer would not likely have the authority to tell a vendor to change their system since that would cost $$$$$$$.
Really the problem is lack of complete user acceptance testing. The IT programmer may make a mistake, very true, HOWEVER, if the customer does not institute proper user acceptance testing the IT guy cannot correct it. most times the IT guy has no idea how folks use the product and had to guess. When I worked in IT, we demanded the costumer perform user acceptance testing as part of the contract.
I think you covered this again today!
How about T.B.D.
To be determined.
As a former GA resident and charged with Reckless Driving. He can see upto 1 yr in jail. I had a $700 fine but got out with 24hrs community service,and a 8 hr driving class; got out with fees paying $1100.
The issue I see with this is the "place holder" is a defacto contemp of court charge and or bail/bond.
Jeez was the guy going THE SPEED OF LIGHT...
That's Tyler Technologies and their wonderful software!
At a place I used to work we would receive a pay adjustment notice towards the end of the year. The company decided to do a little in house programing to produce the annual document. The result was a form letter showing both the cost of living raise along with the merit increase. The software populated my merit increase as one cent per hour. Not exactly a morale booster. It was shortly thereafter that I received a memo from the boss apologizing for the implication that my effort was only worth an extra penny an hour. One of my fellow workers got a 3 cent per hour merit raise. Every so often he would remind me that his merit raise was three times as much as mine.
What be weird is someone actually pay it not show up for court
The article that I read said that the program defaults to a maximum entry of $999,999.00 which means that the court fees were $400,000.00.
how about maximum of $1000 fine
I don't know if the saying "garbage in, garbage out" was invented for the computer age, but it definitely applies.
The county wants to widen his pooper through the courts.
Ben is micromanaging Steve’s work from over his right shoulder.
As a flawed person who does programming (and uses placeholders A LOT), you're correct that people made it, hence there are flaws. For something like this field though, I would use something like TBD on the backend as the placeholder - quick, easy, easy to recognize in code. Any placeholder that shows you need to inquire for more information is sensible, anything that gets a Steve Lehto video, not so much.
Most have no clue beyond 1st, 2nd, 4th, & 5th.
I’ve yet to come across someone who can state even the basics of the THIRD.
YES, I’m that guy who does ask people. Particularly when they spout off about something they think is in the Constitution.
Sounds like an EBCAC ISSUE - error between chair and computer,
Speeding feels like a textbook misdemeanor.
I didn't send it, but I'm glad everyone else did. :P
People want to blame the computer programmers but they are not at fault, they are told exactly what information is to be written in designing the software. The State of Georgia did not just choose any program, it is not a stock program. I laughed so hard when you said" a completely assembled computer fell out of the sky " it reminded me of " The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy".
^ This. Not really any information to go on. Can't point the finger, but I would expect the software to be designed so the fee-schedule would be defined outside of the programming.
Not necessarily. It can be the instructions or it can be the developper. Also, 1.4M is a weird placeholder. I tried to see if it corresponds to any binary limit, but the closest is 134 millions, which would mwle sense as software often count in cents and not dollars. The only issue with that is that doesn't really round to 1.4M unless the reporter decided to round it up (in which case the actual ticket would have the detailed number 1,342,177.27). But that would still be weird because that's the biggest 27 bit number, or 28 bit number if negatives are allowed, and 27 and 28 bit numbers make no sense with today's computers that work with 8 bit sections (so a 28 bit number is still stored and processed as 32 bit in most cases).
All traffic violations in Georgia is considered criminal no excuses.
It doesn't seem legal for officials to traumatize and lie to an individual because the programmers were incompetent.
My first thought when I heard $1.4 million speeding ticket and Georgia...Ed Bolian's is either going to have to sell one of his Lambos or he's going to get representation fron the Tixket Clinic.
Along the cruel and unusual standard, where does judges sending town miscreants into the army or marines fall?
'placeholder' my arse ! I'd fix their nonsense.....I would issue my own claim / law suit against the organisation who issued this ticket for extortion and fraud ! ...... Yeah , I'll see you in court alright ! See how they like that !
Ben standing on his head between the fifth & sixth microphone from screen left, behind the right side of Steve’s head
In UK that much over would be your licence unless the judge was an idiot
A simple "TBD" would suffice 🤠
"Simple Fix" in government? Ya sure, it's never simple when it should be.
What state can you go to jail from a misdemeanor? I've never heard of that before
He was going 10% of the speed of light.
Then Blues Brother were singing I saw the speed of Light No more darkness too much light. I saw the speed of light. ha ha.
I wouldn't be surprised if that number came from wanting to see if someone would just pay the fine by "mistake".
15 over here in Washington is considered 'reckless' and can result in immediate arrest. 35 over I would think you would be going to jail straight off.
Maybe that's his no-show fee if he doesn't show up in traffic court. 🤔🤣
Hey Steve, like your programs thank you for what you do. Not to change the subject, but the civil forfeiture oh, isn't it pretty much the same thing as a bill of attainder?
Here is my question. The fact that there is a listed fine of $1.4 mil, could that trigger an 8th Amendment dismissal?
It probably _should_ , but won't, because he has the "option" of showing up in court. This is essentially the same as $1.4mil in bail. Show up in court, or forfeit some amount of cash. Yes, the 8th amendment is also supposed to protect against excessive bail, but excessive is not defined. Bail in excess of 5 years pay is common, but the fact that you can get a loan at usurious rates (10% flat fee, so well over 100% APR) means the courts don't find that excessive. Remember, the process _is_ the punishment.
If they need a placeholder, why not put in the maximum allowable fee? That way when there's a mistake people may actually just pay it so they don't have to fight the bureaucracy?
1.4 million dollar ticket? If I was driving that fast I would have gotten AWAY!!!
You can't fix stupid but you CAN vote for it!
place holder should say "TO BE DETERMINED BY COURT"
"To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer"
I'm willing to bet the software won't allow non-numerical placeholder values for Amount without drastic rewriting
Fine: $8,675,309. I wonder how many people would get the humor.
7:10 Kind of like on King of the Hill where the judge commanded the would-be car thief who tried to steal Hank's truck to spending 30 days, I think it was in the cab of a pickup truck, an import.
It’s not a mistake it’s a brilliant way to make someone show up to court
Cruel is subjective.....
I bet if they could have automatically deducted it from his bank account and he didnt notice theyd have stayed quiet. If he asked for it back they'd have refused until it made headlines.
That ticket being sent with a outrageous false number should have the case thrown out
Yes .... Invalid ticket/fine ! As well as extortion/fraud .
In the USA anything 15 mph and over the posted speed limit is considered a felony charge.
Canadian Robot lady is the best. I forgot her name. My brain is kinda empty so there is always room to grow.