Justice Before Sunrise

Well shit. Here I sit at 4:30 in the morning, on the hunt for justice.

There was a time when that word meant something. Our forefathers cared about it so much they built an entire branch of government around it. The Judicial branch. Not the Convenience branch. Not the Avoid-Hurting-Feelings branch. Justice.

Because liberty does not exist without it.

Individual freedom does not survive in the absence of accountability. If one person can, through negligence or indifference, strip another human being of their liberty … of their ability to walk, work, speak normally, breathe normally … and face no consequence, then the playing field is broken by design.

Our founding documents don’t scream the word “justice” in neon letters, but it’s threaded everywhere. Speedy trials. Protection against cruel punishment. The right to face your accuser. Protection against illegal search and seizure. These weren’t random thoughts. They were guardrails around power. Around fairness. Around consequence.

Justice is fundamental to liberty.

And there is no shittier feeling than being served an injustice. There is no more hollow experience than watching your life detonate while the person who lit the match walks away untouched.

I know I’ve talked about this before. Probably too much. I’m not actually sorry.

Here’s what bugs me at a cellular level: I’ve gotten tickets in my life for petty crap. Passing a cop who was driving below the speed limit. Parking slightly wrong. Forgetting to renew registration. A cracked taillight lens. I’ve been pulled over more times than I can count.

Yet someone can make a U-turn directly into a motorcycle’s path, fail to yield, send that rider unconscious to the pavement, and… maybe nothing?

The crash report literally says the contributing factor was “Failed to Yield Right-of-Way.” It literally says “citations pending.”

Pending.

Yet every public court record I can access shows nothing. No citation. No case. No acknowledgment beyond paperwork.

So last week I called the police department. They transferred me to the responding officer’s voicemail. I left a message. Nine days later, no response.

So here I am before dawn, drafting an email to the Traffic Unit Supervisor asking a simple question: Were citations filed? If not, why not?

Yes, I know. It’s probably a minor traffic citation. Forty bucks. Maybe a point on a license. On paper, it’s trivial. But to me, it isn’t.

I lost three months of my life without warning. I didn’t show up to work the next morning. I didn’t show up for months. I was unconscious on asphalt, airlifted to Albuquerque, hospitalized for nearly a month, stitched together in ways I’m still negotiating with my own reflection. I’m scheduled for another surgery at the end of March because parts of my face still don’t function correctly.

And the person who caused it? To my knowledge, she went home and probably bitched about her day.

That imbalance does something to you.

Justice doesn’t have to be dramatic to matter. It doesn’t require prison bars or handcuffs. Sometimes it’s as small as a citation that formally says: You were at fault. This was wrong. There is consequence.

That matters.

Because when systems fail to acknowledge harm, they quietly tell the injured that their loss is administrative. That it’s paperwork. That it’s absorbable.

It’s not.

A citation won’t give me back October. It won’t give me back three months of work. It won’t restore the version of my body that existed before that U-turn.

But it is a signal. A signal that negligence isn’t invisible. A signal that accountability still exists.

So yes, I sent the email. The pursuit of justice continues. And if that makes me difficult, I don’t’ give an actual fuck.