The Grass is Always Greener in Sheffield Municipal Court

Many small towns make money via the municipal court route. The collection of fines is not always fair, but, as they say, you can't fight city hall. Or can you?

Sheffield is a small town in desperate need of cash (that is until their version of DreamVision opens). Speed traps? That may be true, but there aren't too many city streets that would qualify as a venue for one. 

So what else is easy pickin's? Below is an account from a Sheffield resident. We are not including our reader's name, even though it was sent in connection to this article. It's an interesting situation with no easy answers.

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On April 19th a letter was sent to me from the city of Sheffield building department warning me my grass on my lot was too tall. I complied and made sure it was mowed a day or two later. Now the city ordnance says if I do not comply then in 10 days the city will send me a citation to appear in court. On May 30th a citation to appear in court was sent and July 16th I showed up to court. 

Between April 19th to May 30th my grass was mowed 3 times. I have receipts for those mowings from the man I hired to mow the grass every 10-14 days Now May 24-29 it rained every single day and my grass cutting guy said he would not mow if the grass is wet. Because of all the rain my grass grew over the legal limit. When I went to court that day the prosecutor said it didn’t matter if I had receipts showing I had complied. What mattered is I was caught with tall grass after I was warned of the tall grass. 

So here is my argument, the law reads that the city must send a warning and I have 10 days to comply if I don’t comply in 10 days then the city must send me a summons. Ok so that means they are gonna take a picture on the day they went to send me a warning, then they must go out to look at the lot 10 days later and give me a citation if I have NOT complied. Not 41 days later. The city of Sheffield seems to think if they have warned someone once then the next time they catch you with tall grass from now until doom's day that they can send you a citation to appear in court. 

I tried to explain to the prosecutor that I had had the lot mowed 3 times and the reason it is high is the four five days of rain where the yard man wouldn’t come. He told me it doesn’t matter, how do I plead. I said I’m not pleading anything I refuse to take part in a kangaroo court. And be rooked in to something I didn’t do or had no control over. He blew up like a bomb, threatened me that he would set this for trial and he was asking for jail time. I told him I’m not scared go do it. What’s the most the judge is gonna give me 24 hours? He then had me tossed out of court. And never sent me my paperwork for trial. I had to call up to find out my trial date.

The city is abusing their own ordnance. They are not checking on the warned lots 10 days after a warning was sent and they using the warning as a forever way to cite people. The day I went to court there were 6 people in there for grass violations - the city has found a new revenue at 400 bucks a pop.

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Anyone else like to report a similar incident?