It should be clear by now. Crystal.

If your city expects its municipal court to make money, your city is run by imbeciles who have no business running a lemonade stand. If your city judges think they can simply jack up fines and toss you in jail if you can't pay, then the criminal is the one wearing the robe.

Crystal.

Time after time it has been decided in the last few years, since now-retired Circuit Judge Hub Harrington in Shelby County - like Amos in the Old Testament - began to point out the injustice of profiting from the poor and jailing the indigent for no other reason than they couldn't scrape up enough money to pay a traffic ticket.

Harrington rubbed the grime away for all to see. Cities all across Alabama used private probation companies to collect their fines, and many, like Harpersville, gave those companies power to punish people without trial or conviction.

And - glory be and hallelujah - Alabama is a better place because Harrington and others spoke for those who too often have no voice.

Judicial Corrections Services, the company that ran the Harpersville debtors's prison and 100 others in the state, decided the climate was too hot and announced it would leave Alabama.

Then the Alabama Judicial Inquiry Commission laid down the law, removing all doubt that cities cannot trample on basic rights in the pursuit of cash, and - private probation companies or not - judges are the ones responsible for making sure those constitutional rights are upheld and guaranteed and honored.

Or else.

A judge has a duty "to enforce the constitutional rights of those who appear in his or her court in matters of adjudication of guilt, imposition of sentence, provision of probation, revocation of probation, and incarceration for failure to pay by indigent defendants," the JIC said in 2014. The judge "must exercise that authority to uphold the integrity, impartiality, and independence of the judiciary and the court system."

It seems so basic. It seems so obvious. But across Alabama that idea of basic justice had been tossed out the window in a mad dash for cash.

But Alabama is better now.

Because again and again, judges have had to pay for their mistakes.

Alabama Circuit Court Judge Marvin Wiggins was censured by the JIC last year after he gave indigent defendants an ultimatum: come up with the cash, donate blood or go to jail. He got off too easy, but the message was clear.

And this week Armstead Lester Hayes III, presiding judge of Montgomery's municipal court, got a little more than a slap on the wrist.

He was suspended from the bench for 11 months and forced to pay $4,312 in court costs.

It's nothing like getting tossed into jail just because you're broke. It's nothing like seeing the cost of a speeding ticket escalate to more than $4,312 because of crazy fees and fines imposed by private probation companies. It was far less than Hayes deserved.

But it is a message. Not just to Wiggins and Hayes, but to judges all over Alabama.

If you are going to put profits over basic American rights, you are going to pay a price. Maybe not an equal price, and maybe not every time. But Alabama now sees you for who and what you are: the bad guy.

You can call yourself a judge, but you can't call yourself just.

It's clear as crystal now. And because of that - and all who have fought for those who cannot fight for themselves - Alabama is a better place.