Are you planning to flight your traffic ticket by going to Court? Well if you have the time, one effective thing to do is to go visit the actual court room where you will have your trial, on the same day in advance of your actual date. For example, if your case is scheduled for a Tuesday hearing at 8:30 am in department 24, then go to department 24, on a Tuesday prior to your hearing date at 10 am and watch what happens in the court room.

See how the people are called to the stand. See how the Judge addresses them and what questions he asked them. See how people present their case to the judge, how they argue their case, how they cross examine the police officer, and take away what you think works and employ that to your case strategy. The process will expose weakness in your cases and give you ideas to prepare for in your case.

If you don’t have the time or luxury to do this, consider hiring an attorney or talking to someone who is familiar with the court system.

After you get a ticket, the ticket will give you a hearing date. Usually this is the arraignment hearing. This is where you enter your plead. Most people to the Court’s delight, plead guilty and pay their traffic tickets online avoid having to come to court.

If you decide to come to your arraignment hearing, it works like this. A large group of people are scheduled to be there so it will pretty much take up your entire morning. Your hearing are scheduled at 8:30 am.

When you get into the courtroom, the bailiff will take roll call. He will ask you to tell him you are present when he calls your name. They also usually pass out a form for you to sign in, acknowledging your acceptances to have your traffic ticket heard before a temporary judge. A temp judge is some times used in California since most courts do not have a judge assigned to strictly handling traffic related crimes or misdemeanor matters (no insurance, speeding tickets, and etc).

If you name is not called, you are asked to talk to the clerk so that they can pull your files. Eventually, after everyone is checked in, the judge will come in. The Bailiff will call you to come up to talk to the Judge. The Judge will tell you what you have been charged with. He will ask how you plead.

If you plead guilty then he tells you your estimate fee amount. If you need more time to pay, you can ask him for an extension and/or the opportunity to do community service in lieu of having to pay. If you plead not guilty or no contest then the court will assign you a preliminary hearing date. In order to plead not guilty or no contest you have to post bail. The amount of bail impose is relatively high to encourage you to plead guilty. You also have a shorter period of time to pay your bail. I think the longest that you can ask for an extension of time to pay your bail is 30 days where as you can pay your fine over a longer period of time if requested. Its up to the judge how long you have to pay your fine.

You can also ask for traffic school when you make your plead.

After you enter your plead, you wait for the court to give you your paper work. Depending on what the Judge orders you either have to take your paper work to the clerk’s office and pay your fine and you can go home if it states otherwise.

That is basically the arraignment process in a nutshell.