A horn that won't quit, and a guy who won't give up

Justin Doyle grew up near St. Joseph, Minn., served in the Navy and worked for the railroad and the post office. He votes in every election, served jury duty twice and stops whenever he sees an accident. When he does something dumb in St. Joe -- say, park his car in someone's driveway -- people will call and say, "Hey, Doyle, move your car."

He knows the Cities are different, so Doyle wasn't surprised when his car was towed in Minneapolis in December. But he was surprised to learn his car had been "impounded for booking," according to the impound lot guy. The 1993 Mazda is not much to look at, but it's never been a criminal, so Doyle called around.

"What in the hell is 'booking?'" he asked. A police officer explained that the driver probably had been arrested. Doyle had loaned his car to his son, who was not in jail, so it must have been stolen, he reasoned. After more phone calls, he learned that his Mazda, in fact, had been booked for crying wolf -- its alarm would not shut off.

This surprised Doyle, mainly because his car didn't have an alarm. Still, he paid the impound fees and got his car back. A little research solved the mystery: That make of car has a history of its horn shorting out in the cold. But three weeks later Doyle received a ticket from police for a faulty alarm, even though he'd told them his Mazda did not have one. He had 21 days to pay the $133 or face the city's traffic gods.

Doyle, who like me acknowledges that his central Minnesota Irish stock sometimes comes with a headstrong disposition, drove 80 miles to Hennepin County court to settle things. "I try to do what's right, even if it's not easy," he said.

That's when the real fun began. He paid five bucks to park, waited an hour, then told his story to a judge. He even got documented evidence he had a faulty horn, not an alarm.

The judge offered to knock off a few bucks for his effort.

But he would never say he, or his car, was guilty of something that was not possible.

"So imagine, if you will, that you are in my shoes when a hearing officer attempts to induce me to lie to her (perjury when it's under oath) by pleading guilty when we both know that I'm not, and offers a fifty-some dollar discount on the fine (that's usually called bribery).

"Remember Kathleen Soliah, aka Sara Jane Olson, who wanted to be both guilty and not guilty, depending on her audience? None for me, thanks," he said.

The judge finally said that if Doyle would return with a receipt saying his horn was fixed, the fine would be dismissed. But Doyle saw the incongruity in fixing something he wasn't cited for, in lieu of something he was cited for. Besides, believing that St. Joe, and the world, is probably a better place without another car horn, Doyle had already fixed the problem himself by simply snipping the wires.

So now he will go to court and plead his case in the name of justice, with a small "j."

In one of his previous cases, Doyle was cited for parking in a loading zone while getting takeout at Bravo Burritos.

"I simply told the truth," said Doyle. "I had parked there for a short time in order to load my burrito into my car."

The judge agreed.