Cop being stupid, racist or just nice? (long)

In My Humble Opinion
1

Opinions because you aren’t a lawyer, if you are a lawyer, you aren’t my lawyer, and even if you were, you aren’t licensed to practice in Nevada anyway. If you are, PM me with your office phone, I’ll be an easy consult fee.

Cut to the chase . . er, I mean the long boring story explaining my questions.

I got a speeding ticket in Las Vegas. I was doing 80+ in a 60mph zone. I’m guilty. That is not the point.

I’m also a generally responsible, sane, reasonably well-socialized non-scoflaw adult. So, when the cop flashed his flashy-lights in my rearview, I pulled the hell over, got BRIGHT pink non-gun shaped wallet out of my purse, as calmly as I could manage, and politely handed the child (the cop looked about 14. Og, I’m old. anyway) my license, a stack of Insurance cards and registrations, asked him – nicely – to find the proper papers so I wouldn’t have to dig in my purse for my reading glasses, and then sat still.

Cop asked me if I knew why he pulled me over. I thought “duh!” but said “I may have been going a bit too fast.”
Cop asked if there was any particular reason for my excessive speed. I just blinked at him (WTF did he want me to say? “I gotta pee” “I’m a self-centered brat who doesn’t like going slow”?), so he asked where I was going.
Yadda yadda, little chat about traffic laws. He goes back to his car to run my info, I sit still. 11 minutes, 32 seconds, and now I really do have to pee. He comes back to my window, says his little spiel about giving me a break, read the back of the ticket, blah-blah-blah, sign here. I sign there, merge carefully and lawfully, get to work and read the ticket.

He wrote I was doing 70mph (very nice of him), on January 22, 2007. My plates expired in March of 2006 (2004?) rather than May of 2008, and wrote that my drivers license claims I am an 83 year old male and was issued in Missouri rather than Montana.

Several of my coworkers – not the six idiots about whom I often bitch – have opinions and advice.
1 “Call lawyer so-and-so, the cop was giving you a chance to fight it.”
2 “Was the cop drunk? Fight it!”
3 “Call lawyer such & such, he’ll get it down to a parking ticket, no points!”
4 “The cop isn’t stupid – you’re white, polite and old. Call the lawyer, dumbass!” (this coworker is 21, black, grew up in The Jungle, and putting herself through college with a 3.5 gpa while working full time. I respect her opinion. I’m 43 & glow-in-the dark white with a middle-aged, middle-class, well-educated, utterly boring aura of respectability.) It saddens me that she might be right.

I’m seriously considering calling a lawyer, just because there are so many mistakes on the ticket (the General Principle principle) and because I actually am a spoiled brat who would rather not have to suffer the consequences of my misbehaviour if I can avoid it.

My real question is . . . was the cop stupid, racist, a rookie who doesn’t know to value accuracy, or just being nice because I was?

2

Meh, who cares if the cop was stupid? If the ticket has incorrect info on it then you win. Once I got a ticket written for June 6, 2008 instead of June 8, 2006. The judge threw it out immediately after laughing.

Go for it and fight.

3

He did something nice. Show the judge this get out of jail free card and move on.

4

I don’t think you need a lawyer. I think you just need to go to court, show this to a judge, and odds are very good that it will get thrown out without any further ado.

Exceptions to this advice: if the fine is so high that a lawyer would small change compared to paying it; if you already have so many points that your license will be suspended or revoked; or that you actually are an 83 year old man with a Missouri license and expired plates.

5

Racist is bad; giving you a break on the ticket is not. Ergo, it wasn’t racism.
Ditto stupid.
Ditto that incredibly careless.

He must have been being nice.

6

Sorry if this goes into GQ rather than IMHO. Mistakes on the ticket aren’t that important. For one thing part of your confusion may be that you can’t read his handwriting. Doesn’t matter, it’s not for you. If he did make some mistakes on the ticket there is something called good faith. As long as he wrote the ticket in good faith (no shenanigans) then there can be mistakes on the ticket. I have been on the stand when a budding Perry Mason (never an actual lawyer, just the guy I gave a ticket to who thinks he has a gotcha) asks me about a mistake or typo.

“Do you know you didn’t sign the ticket!”
“Yep guess you are right”
Judge: “Got anything else?”

As long as I can get on the stand and testify as to what happened the judge can overlook any mistakes on the actual ticket. It’s the facts of the case that are important. Of course the judge has the final say. Thats why they call him the judge. Just don’t think it will automatically get thrown out. The judge might. He might not.

7

Hmmmm, sounds like something else going on. Could it be that LVPD is still using carbon copy ticket books? If the officer used some kind of E device to create the ticket maybe there was carryover from a previous citation? It’s very wierd, but unless you’re in a position where the conviction could cause you extreme financial loss, I don’t see it being worth hiring an attorney. I think I’d go to the courthouse and show it to someone in the court clerk’s office and ask them for an explanation, or take your chances on appearance day and present it to the judge/prosecutor.

8

Seriously? I can just show up, all by myself, and tell the Judge about all the fuck ups and he’ll tell me to nevermind about the $197 fine and it won’t raise my insurance? Will he use an Emily Litella voice? That would be very shiny!

I haven’t had ticket in . . . 12 years? Maybe 15. I paid that one on the spot (if you’re obsessive about detail, search for a thread about aircraft monitoring tickets in GQ) because I was guilty. No other arrests or convictions, in my whole entire life. I’ve got a lead foot, but I’m lucky and otherwise law abiding.

So why does Vegas have so very many billboards for traffic violation reducing attorneys?

9

Would a cop do something nice that would make him look like a complete moron and could have his ability to do his job questioned? Lowballing your speed is nice- writing that you are 83 is just plain bizarre- are you sure its not a case of bad handwriting?

10

My copy of the ticket is a pink NCR sheet. The top sheet was white or light yellow.

My adreline gland (?? whichever gland produces adreline by the boatload, and however it is properly spelled) apparently expected a sabertoothed tiger or twelve *and * a trigger-happy SWAT team, despite no priors of any kind, hidden drugs, or secret weapons. I assumed he sat in his car for 11 some-odd-freaking-minutes to see if I’d actually burst into tears, but maybe Nevada simply has slow computers?

To Wee Bairn

Dropping the ticket from 80+ to 70 may have been niceness, or just prudence – my speedo said 80, his said something else (no radar – he was “pacing” me), or maybe the 20 mph over fine is HUGE so people fight it, I dunno. If that was the issue, I’d quit my whining & pay up, gratefully.

However, 2008 is hard to mistake for 2006 (2004 possibly) and m.a.y. instead of m.a.r.ch. really hard. Same with 64 instead of 24. I’d let a birthday of '04 go just in case of bad handwriting. Ditto for MO instead of MT (maybe he has loopy Ts?) especially since I said missouri when MI is actually Michigan.

I do think the “mistakes” are bizarre – that’s why I asked the question “stupid, rookie, racist or intentional?”

11

I think Boyo Jim is 100% right here.

Unless it’s for DUI, generally you don’t need or want a lawyer for a minor Infraction.

12

Damn! If I got sent on my way in eleven minutes, I’d think I had the most efficient cop in the universe. I’ve racked up more than a few tickets in the 13 years that I’ve been driving and I’ve never seen it take less than a half hour!

13

Using MO for Montana is sorta logical. Wrong, but logical.
Just like using MI for Missouri is sorta logical. But also wrong.
Or MI for Mississippi. Equally logical & equally wrong.

My take on tickets is simple …

The fine plus BS fees is ~$200. The impact on my insurance is $400+ per year for several years. The potential impact on my lifestyle if I rack up enough points to lose my license is huge.

Guilty or not, perfect ticket or incompetant ticket, I pay the lawyer $125 & the ticket magically transmutes into a parking violation & I send the court $50 for that.

IOW, it’s cheaper to pay the atty than to pay the ticket itself, much less deal with the follow-on consequences.

Don’t see a lot of reason to agonize over the relative merits of these choices or to dwell on the details of any one incident.

14

I’m missing the “racist” part here. Do you think he was nice 'cause you were (uh, are) white? I’d suggest it’s probably more because you were polite and reasonable and even nice to the guy who’s probably used to dealing with tweakers and whiners.

You might want to give your insurance agent a call and see if this will affect your rates if it’s upheld. If not, and assuming the fine won’t break you, I wouldn’t bother with a lawyer. Nevada’s got those billboards up for the aforementioned tweakers and whiners who were doing 40 over the limit, rude to the cop, and ticketed for everything from the speeding violation to a cracked taillight and dark tinted windows in response. You probably don’t need one in this case - it won’t be any worse than the fine you’re already looking at, and you don’t need a lawyer to say to the judge, “There appear to be some mistakes on this ticket, does that matter?”

15

I was thinking the same. I am sure it doesn’t look to good for a police officer to write such a sloppy ticket when he could just as soon give you a warning and let you on your way.

16

A friend of mine once got a ticket thrown out because the cop wrote on the ticket that she was male. She has a unisex name, can look very mannish (short hair, no makeup, dresses in flannel and jeans), and was wearing what she called her “dyke hat” at the time. (She’s straight but people often think she’s a lesbian. I have no idea what a “dyke hat” might be. Have to ask her sometime.)

17

Two-letter abbreviations for state names was a huge freaking mistake.

18

Did he actually write that you were speeding on January 22, 2007? Over a year ago?

19

I think Loach has the right take on the whole thing. You got stopped for speeding, the officer issued a summons that says you got stopped for speeding. Unless he wrote the ticket to someone else (wrong name, address, city AND state) and the person identified on the ticket can’t possibly be you, the State of Nevada and its counties are going to extend him the courtesy of honoring the citation. Walk yourself through what you think will happen in court: The judge will ask you (after you have sworn to tell the truth, yadda, yadda, yadda) whether you were, in fact, issued the ticket. And whether you were actually speeding. You gonna’ lie to the judge? And the officer will be in court, and he’ll get a chance to answer the same questions.

Now, if the officer really did screw up the ticket, he’ll no doubt have a discussion afterward with his supervisor. And you’ll still pay the ticket and court costs.

20

To echo DrDeth, BoyoJim’s right. Go down to the courthouse on your (2 and half hour) lunch break and have it thrown out. The judge won’t blink twice. You don’t need a lawyer.