Category Archives: Court

Prove Your Conduct Was “Legally Justified”

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You may also successfully argue that your actions were “legally justified” considering the circumstances of your alleged violation. For example, if you were charged with driving too slowly in the left lane, it is a legal defense in all states that you had to slow down to make a lawful left turn. In this situation you do not have to deny that you were driving significantly below the speed limit and causing vehicles behind you to slow down, but you can offer the additional fact that legally justifies your otherwise unlawful action. Such defenses can be very successful because they raise an additional fact or legal point, rather than simply contradicting the officer’s testimony.

Here are a couple of examples of situations in which this defense might work to clear your ticket.

  • You are forced to stop on a freeway because your car has begun to make a loud and dangerous-sounding noise and you fear you would put other drivers in danger if you continued to drive without checking it out.
  • You swerved into the right lane without signaling a lane change to pull over because a hornet flew into your car through your open window.
  • You had sudden and severe chest pain and safely exceeded the posted speed limit to get to the doctor, whose office was only one half-mile away.

These tips have help me win several traffic violations.

 

Fight your traffic ticket

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Challenge the Officer’s Observations and win

In cases where your state law requires an objective observation by the officer (not a judgment call about whether your action was safe), it often boils down to an argument about whose version of the facts is correct. For instance, if you were cited for failing to come to a stop at a red light or for making a prohibited turn, who wins the case will depend on who the judge believes. Unfortunately, the guy wearing the badge usually wins, unless you can cast real doubt on his ability to accurately perceive what happened. However, there are a number of techniques that may work to raise at least a reasonable doubt as to your guilt.

Here are the types of evidence most likely to help you convince the judge that you — not the officer — are in the right:

  • Statements of witnesses, such as passengers or bystanders, who testify to your version of events. Witnesses are probably the strongest defense.
  • A clear, easy-to-understand diagram showing where your vehicle and the officer’s vehicle were in relation to key locations and objects, such as an intersection, traffic signal, or other vehicle. Diagrams are especially important for tickets given at intersections, such as right-of-way, traffic light, or stop sign violations. Take Pictures if possible.
  • Photographs of intersections, stop signs, and road conditions. These can be used to show conditions like obscured stop signs or other physical evidence that backs up your case.
  • Any other evidence that would cast doubt on the officer’s ability to accurately observe your alleged violation. A classic way to do this is to prove his view was obscured — or that his angle of observation made it impossible to accurately see what happened. And therefore the officer is wrong.

Camera Ticket

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Here are the steps that you need to do when you get a red light camera ticket:

1. Take this very seriously because it is a criminal violation if you ignore it.

2. Verify if the ticket is real or not. Go to the court’s website and see if the ticket shows up. There are alot of scams lately trying to solicit personal information through bogus ticket scams. If the ticket shows up on the court’s website then you know it is real and it needs to be dealt with.

3. Camera tickets come with two photos. One of your license plate and one of the driver. These photos are the evidence for your conviction. Check if the photo of your license plate matches correctly. Then see if the photo is you are not. If the photo of the driver is not you then you can ask the court to dismiss the charges. You will have to go to court to show it is not you to get it dismiss.

If it is questionable whether you photo is you or not, you should try to fight it and ask the court to dismiss it. It will be up to the court because there were no witness at the scene of the incident.

If the photo is you then you will need to fight the ticket on technical grounds.

4. Read and learn the vehicle statues in your state regarding red light camera. Most state require that there are warning signs within 300 yards of the intersection that utilize this technology. If the sign are missing, damaged or otherwise fail to notify a driver then your ticket can get dismiss. But you will need to visit the location and take pictures if the sign is lacking. Keep a record of the date of photos and let the court know how close it was to the date of your alleged violation.

5. In California, the police is required to mail your ticket within 15 days of the incident. The ticket must also be signed by a law enforcement officer, include the physical address and phone number of the court. If your ticket is lacking any of these things you can argue that the ticket is not valid.

Court – Mistake

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If you got a ticket for speeding based on a radar gun and you decide to fight it in court, here are somethings to know:

The officer will testify that he has successfully completed a radar operator course not less than 24 hours approved and certified by the Commission of Peace Officer Standards and Training. He will testify that the device meets or exceeds the minimum operational standard of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and that it was calibrated recently by an independent certified laser/radar repair and testing/calibration facility.

He will come with and provide the court and you will all his certificates. He will provide the Court with the Engineering Traffic Survey report for the area you got caught pulled over at. The ETS tells the court the considered dangerous speed at the area you were allegedly speeding at.

Knowing all of this, what you shouldn’t do (and I have seen this happen many of times):

1. Ask the officer if his radar is working properly
2. Could other cars around you affect the radar ability to track your correct speed?
3. On a curve or turn, don’t ask him if he caught tracked your speed when your car was not at a straight away.
4. Don’t ask him set up questions that allow him to validate or substantiate that he did his job correctly.

The officer is going to answer any question that ask if he did his job correctly in the affirmative.

You are going to need to do better. Remember, you are on trial and you need to put up your defense. If you did your job right, you would have already asked for all the documents about his credentials, the radar certificates, and ETS; and obtained prior to trial – so you would already know after reviewing them if they are in good standing.

So you can assume that he will do his job and testify all the necessary points that will support your conviction. So you will need to read the vehicle code that is the basis of your ticket and see why you didn’t violate that section, or despite dangerous speed limit set in the ETS you were driving reasonably because you were going with the flow of traffic, and etc.

We will get into this more but I wanted to first point out things you should not do in court because I have seen too many people make this mistake.

Pictures & Drawing At Court

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If you plan to fight your traffic ticket and go to court, here are some things you should know.

If you are planning to use pictures, drawings, or any document, you have to show the police officer those items prior to your trial. You simply have to show him or her what you are planning to use so that they have an opportunity to look over them. The Court will not allow you to put them on the spot and ask them questions about your documents.

If you fail to show the officer your evidence, the Court will put your case on hold and tell you to go show the officer your evidence and put your case in back of everyone else. Remember, the Court is going to be more or less working with the officers. They are both government employs serving the public.

So you think that you can act like Perry Mason and catch your officers by surprise with photographs of your traffic scene. There is a good chance that the officer will have diagrams of the area of the traffic violation as well with him or her. The police officer do a pretty good serving as witnesses. They do this pretty often so after a few trials, they learn really fast and come somewhat prepared.

Preparing for Court

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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.

Arraignment Hearing

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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.