Conor

So tomorrow morning I will be going to court to contest my 57 in a 35 speeding citation. I'm looking for a little more advice on how I should explain myself, and things like that.
Here's the story:
I was on a back road at night, goin a little fast, I;m not sure how fast exactly. I get pulled over, and issued the ticket. I told the cop I was trying to run the car up before I got on the highway as I had just been tweaking the suspension (which is true).
Now, the good part. The cop wrote the ticket for the wrong day. I was pulled over on 3/11, and the ticket was issued for 3/12. Right now I have a copy of the ticket notarized with the time as being about 10 hours before it was issued, as well as an ATM receipt about 5 minutes after the time and date on the ticket, from an ATM an hour away from the town I got the ticket in.
Also, when I received a letter in the mail telling me what day to go to court, it said the citation date was the 11th, which it was, and the ticket says the 12th.

Should this be enough to get the ticket thrown out?
Anyone have a recommendation on what I need to say when I talk to the judge? Should I say I wasn't there on that date, and ask to have the ticket dismissed; or should I say the date is wrong so the ticket should be dismissed? Is asking for the ticket to be dismissed the correct way of going about this, or do I plead not guilty, etc?

TIA for any help!

Conor

(I'm gonna post this in OT as well, sorry if you see it twice)

BlackKnight44

how old are you...i did 69 in a 35 b/c i was late home from a christmas eve party...and the cop had no heart at all...the road is a 4 lane road it was 11 at night, and there was NO ONE for miles....and i still got the ticket....officer badass strikes again...

but don't worry if ur over 18 its not gonna b that bad if your under 18 like me then you get 90 days, and a 250 dollar fine plus court fees...course this is ****ty ohio...

Conor

I'm 19, 18 when I got the ticket

Mike1982

Don't worry to much. It will NOT be thown out but just show up and be nice. When I got my ticket, in one place he said I had a '96 porsche then said two different speeds on it and had one other thing wrong. After everything, I talked to the judge and she said that it wouldn't get a ticket thrown out for all of that.

951guy

i got 2 80mph tickets in week @ 70mph freeway max speed.. i've always thought that running at that speed was fine as long as you dont go beyond 85 ...im goin to court twice for this.. ask for payment in installation, go to traffic school and do community service.. i have no possible escape i guess

951Badger

Yeah, don't expect it to be thrown out because of the date discreps. Don't lie about it either. Saying you were never there can get you contempt. Or at least a good verbal thrashing. Above all BE NICE and respectful. I spend most of my work in courtrooms during trial. Decorum is VERY important as is respect for all members of the court.

Minus000

really? In this crazy far north land of Canada if the ticket has inaccurate information? Car colour dosn't match.. the time and date is wrong.. ect. the ticket has to be dismissed because it is invalid.

BlackKnight44

ya dress up in ur sunday suit times 3, speak nice, plead guilty, take the hit....I would've gotten at least 6 months for what i did...90 days is considered lucky where i'm from. Just be very polite, and you won't get screwed

Bhj0887

I have 1 speeding ticket on my record, 53 in a 25. It was completely wrong, this was about a years ago but I had my permit was doing 53 to speed up onto the highway (for real it was an onramp type deal). Then I see lights behind me, he pulls me over...blah blah blah. Anyway he cites me for doing 53 in a 25, then realizes its a permit and cites me again for driving without an adult, then goes back to his car comes back and cites me again for driving after curfew (it was 4 AM). He looks around the car and sees the inspection sticker due, it was September 2, 03 when I got pulled over, the inspection was up in August.

Now, the part that's messed up, he had wrote my liscense as a commercial liscense put the wrong name and the wrong DL #. I went to court and they just amended it. I lost my "permit" for 3 months, hundreds of dollars in fines, and had !!"6"!! points added on my liscense. I took a special exams test and had 5 of them removed.

I don't know how it works where you are but they can be real ******** around here, you can't win. Public defenders and lawyers will only lower the overall cost to the courts and raise the cost because you have to pay them.


You might get lucky and they amend it to doing 49 in a 35 which will greatly reduce the cost. I'm almost positive they won't dismiss it.

BeerBurner

I responded to the OT post, but yeah, whether or not it gets thrown out will depend on the particular judge. So, me will view it as invalid while others will say that, discrepancy or not, you were still speeding, and since the prosecution is only required to prove things beyond a reasonable doubt, well, many judges will not think that the discrepancy is enough to say that you weren't, in fact, speeding.

Good luck!

BB.

951guy

some on them are just ******** period ..when they clocked me at 80 on a 70 speed limit.. the officer didnt even let me explain ..he wrote the ticket ..he let me sign it ..and asked me why i was speeding ..i didnt say anything to my disappointment, it was already too late cuz everything's been written and signed ...i guess they dont like porsches especially in bright colors

Adam Roberts

This is how it is:

The judge usually won't throw out the ticket due to an error. A notable exception would be the officer writing the name of a street that's a 60 zone instead of a 35 zone... if you played that deck right... that could get you off. if not.. forget about it.


You cannot get contempt of court for simply defending yourself. That's one of the most ludicrous things I've heard in recent memory.

If you are polite, behave and don't interrupt the judge.. They'll let you say basically whatever you want.




Conor. What were your charges? in some states speeding more than 20mph over the limit is automatic careless or even Reckless driving.

Reckless is almost always a Misdemeanor unless its felony Reckless

I don't know how it works in your state, but here....If this is your first plea hearing, then just plead "Not Guilty" ..the court will take note.. then your pre-trial hearing and court date will be set.
The District Attorney Will then either offer some sort of plea bargain because they don't want to dedicate unnecessary resources to prosecuting you. they want you to make it easy and plead guilty later on.

So if you have Misdemeanor Reckless.. they may opt to withhold a conviction or

if its just a traffic ticket.. they may lower the fines and /or points. you can also speak with the D.A and possibly lower or eliminate the points for a higher fine if the state doesn't mandate points for a particular offense.

Don't get too chummy with the D.A, though...remember the D.A isn't your friend....


Looks like you're kinda' stuck. You could go to trial and argue that you had a faulty speedometer and if points could be widthheld because you "Fixed" that problem.... just get a mechanic to verify that... the speedometer needle can be quite innacurate quite easily if you move it past the 160 or 180mph mark..by hand


you can fight a lot of speeding tickets to a point. I think somewhere around 95% of all tickets aren't even contested.. and even if 50% were contested it would clog the courts and cost so much money to the municipality it wouldn't even be worth the effort.

I think people are too afraid to try to contest..

Conor

This was just a traffic ticket, I could have just mailed in the money and been done with it.

vasillalov

My best advice (it worked 7 times for me) is as follows:

1. Plead guilty BUT ask for hearing!
2. Don't try to play with the date discrepancies!
3. Tell the judge that this is your first offece (I hope this is the case) and you are protecting your driving record.
4. Explain the judge that a speeding ticket on you record will mean an enourmous increase in your already high insurance rate.
5. ASK FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE.
6. The judge will probbaly send you to driving school to clear the points on your driving record and let you do community service to pay off the ticket!

Whatever you do, get dressed nicely (don't overdo it), look very presentable, avaoid slang and be courteous and polite. Noone gets what they want if they are nasty looking and don't have manners!

Good luck!

UDPride

I agree with Adam. Arguing over wrong dates or other mickey mouse items on the ticket will just let the judge know you are drawing at staws and trying to impress him with your best Matlock impersonation. Theres no quicker way to get on a judge's bad side. 99.9% of the time the tickets were issued because you (or whomever) were breaking the law and driving too fast -- too fast to be considered in the realm of adequate human error of a few mph.

My advise is pay the ticket and get on with life. Most tickets are under $100. If you have to spend more than 3hrs devoted to coming up with a defense on a speeding ticket, its usually a bad investment. At a measly $33/hr, your free time better be worth a lot more than that. Only if its your 10th offense and they are about to throw you in the slammer would I bother fighting them. Go to court, plead guilty, show your remorse, ask for a compromise, and move on. Traffic judges have heard everything. If you think you have a brilliant strategy based on flow charts, time/distance graphs, photos, etc etc you are wasting your time. They see people like that stroll in once a week.

The best way to get out of a ticket is to get the officer to not show up.