Exactly. A constable has to ask the specific police departments for a citation book. If the police issues him the book, then he can write tickets all day long (within that town). Now if anyone fights those tickets, then the constable has to go to court himself to defend it. And the constable does not get paid for doing so, nor does he get paid for writing the actual ticket. So it really is a waste of time.
Absolutely correct as I mentioned above.
I base my opinion here from knowing a "constable".....a losers in high school that was total "wanna be" a marine but too chicken shit to enlist and then "wanna be" a cop and flunked out of college trying to get a cj degree and then by the time he quit college was too fat and out of shape to get hired and go to the academy. Guess my opinion of constables is skewed here by that!
you said it first......they are out there!
Sadly a lot of MA Constables are much less than "professional" and create problems for the rest of us. I do wish there was a real vetting process, but it tends to be highly political (who you know) and the lack of training really amplifies this problem. I worked closely with John Sofis Scheft, Esq. on a Byrne Grant to study how we could improve all LE training in the state. The end result (a report collecting dust) sits above my desk. One of the state Constables assns (there are 2) was so dead set against any training that I up and quit that org and also didn't let them know about the work I was doing with John on this project. I am now a member of the other state assn and they do provide some decent training of their own, but it is still nowhere near what is truly needed to understand this job.
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And to the person who said we don't need Constables . . .
- MGL makes it ILLEGAL for a Police Officer to serve Civil Process.
- MGL allows Constables to serve both Civil and Criminal Process (but we don't usually do the latter).
- If Constables didn't exist, under MGL you would NOT be able to successfully sue anyone in Civil Matters as there would be no way to attest that the person was served a legal notice of the lawsuit.