Manny, please excuse this repost. My first one fell to the second page, and I really need help on this. I have a pre-trial hearing coming up next week, and I need to have my requests for discovery sent out before then.
What is the correct format for a discovery? I need copies of the officer’s radar training, his copy of the ticket, his notes for the stop, the radar’s calibration records, etc. How should I ask for this?
–Tim
You’re a clever young man Tim but if this is an important hearing (I assume you’re going to get whacked with points and fine etc if you lose) you need to hire an attorney ASAP.
Judges generally fall into two categories:
1: Amused and intrigued you’re playing lawyer
2: Irritated at the fact you’re playing lawyer
Make your odds better than 50/50 and get a real attorney.
Tim, I have no idea what jurisdiction you’re in, or what the particular court rules are for your forum. So take this as generic advice:
There is no magic format for discovery demands. Just a simple letter indicating that you are requesting the following items, should be sufficient. Yes, a lawyer would use fancy languge and long paragraphs and disclaimers, but that’s more out of tradition than practice. And a non-lawyer who tries to sound like a lawyer will be painfully apparent.
That being said, if your hearing is Monday, you’ve waited too long. Most statutes (at least in the civil realm-- I don’t do much criminal law) require that discovery materials be produced 20 days or so from the date of demand. If you have a hearing coming up soon, the only way to get the documents is by subpoenaing the entity holding the records to appear and produce them at the hearing. You power as a pro se litigant to issue a subpoena is going to be governed by state law, which I won’t even guess at the terms of.
So just write a letter to the local DA prosecuting the case, and for good measure, send a copy to the police department that issued the ticket. Include the summons number and case number (if they’re different), and indicate that you are requesting copies of any and all documents of each particular type. If there’s not enough time for them to mail them to you before the hearing, request that they have those documents available at the hearing for your review. Bring a copy of your letter with you when you go to court.
That being said, don’t necessarily be so certain that all of these items will be produced, or even relevant. There’s not much point to forcing the officer to produce certificates from his radar training classes if he is going to appear in person and testify that he attended them. Just because someone’s testimony is not corroborated in writing doesn’t mean it’s untrue. Similarly, it may not necessarily be common practice for your local police department to maintain written records of radar calibration. Instead, the officer will get on the stand and testify to the particular things he did, and that the radar unit returned the expected readings.
In other words, don’t think that requesting all these records is going to set a trap that the police might fall into and allow you to get off easy. Astro’s estimation of your odds is pretty generous. So long as the officer shows up to testify, it is overwhelmingly likely that you’re going to be found guilty of the offense you’re ticketed for. Instead, try to talk to the prosecutor beforehand and see if you can plead to a lower charge (many jurisdictions will let offenders with clean records plead to a non-moving, non-points violation with the same fine as the original offense).
Geez, Homer, are you addicted to breaking the rules of this forum, or what?
A bump of the other one I could live with, but you know that this is against our rules.
Please do not do this again.