Yesterday I received an email from the NYC Department of Finance regarding the ticket I got for failing to display a current registration sticker on my car window.
Violation Decisions: Even True NOMIT/NON-CODE GUILTY. The charge: violating Traffic Rule 4-08(j)(3) by standing or parking a vehicle with New York plates that did not display a current registration sticker.
The verdict: GUILTY. The fine: $65.
I paid it grudgingly yesterday. The verdict was undersigned by Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) John Petrak, dated 9/3/2025.
I had received the ticket on 8/25 and believed I had a legitimate excuse, so I appealed on 8/27.
In my appeal, I explained that I had renewed my registration online back on July 3rd. But because I had moved and wasn't able to update my address online, I never received the paper registration card. I carried only the temporary certificate of registration on my phone. I even tried to change my address online, which I recorded here.
After changing my address online, on 8/19, I went to the DMV to request a replacement card. I didn’t immediately place the sticker on my car because—coming from Kansas, where the expiration date shows only the month and year—I thought I had until the end of August to display it. I overlooked the small but crucial detail: the card listed the expiration date as 8/11/2025.
When I appealed, I thought of Judge Frank Caprio, who had just passed away on 8/20. Remembering his fairness and compassion, I hoped for a kindred spirit on the other side of my case—someone who might recognize that my error was not malicious, that I had renewed the registration, and that this was my first slip. Perhaps even someone who would consider how inflation and the rising cost of living weigh heavily on seniors like me.
But sadly Judge Caprio is gone, and no such spirit rose in his place. The decision was cold and swift. Guilty. Pay $65. Case closed.
This is where the contrast between law and justice becomes clear. The law has no sympathy for circumstance, no ear for reason. It is blind not only in principle, but often in practice. Judge Caprio’s court was different: he saw the person before the case, the story behind the slip. His compassion reminded us that the law should serve humanity, not the other way around.
Now, with the passing of Judge Caprio, one wonders if the machinery of rules will ever again pause long enough to ask not just what happened, but why. As with my case, the system risks losing the one thing that makes justice worth believing in—its human heart.
It’s not far from the truth to say the system is heartless at its core—less a guardian of fairness than a machine of control, one that punishes most those who can least afford to resist.