I went to court for eating a sandwich in the street. I'm pretty sure this could have happened.

EDIT: here's the full story: http://p1x3l.com/article/121/cowboy-america/

Did you plead guilty? A lot of countries ask if you have ever been convicted of a crime and you'd have to answer yes to that question (no matter how ridiculous the 'crime')

I did, didn't want to go change my flight back to France and go to court, so I plaid guilty and sent 25$ by mail. Never received an answer so I did change my flight and went to court to be told that I had already paid and didn't need to be there.

My friend who was drinking went there without paying and they told him he could spend the afternoon in a "session" with other people and not pay the 25. He did it, it was mostly people sharing their experiences about how they got there.

One guy got into an argument with a cop so the cop convoked him for peeing in the street, another one had a restaurant and his table was too far on the sidewalk... stuff like that.

Do you mean that this wasn't the official charge? Because I'm sure the official charge was something else.

There was no official charge in the Stop-and-Frisk incident. I'm comparing that to a very professional (almost apologetic) Central Park trespassing ticket that ended up getting thrown out, as most of them do.

I'm assuming I was not charged with anything after the stop-and-frisk because they figured out I was probably a lot more trouble for them than I was worth. In this case, appearances were deceiving...what I was wearing at that time, due to the weather, screamed "punk kid/hipster" far more than the "Privileged Accountant who passes for White" clothing I had on underneath.

I believe everyone who's saying a person of color or otherwise underprivileged person would have had a much different outcome is 100% correct.