After 20 years with a perfect driving record, I earned myself a speeding ticket driving through a little burg in Michigan a while back. My formal hearing is Moon-day Monday (i.e., 2 days from now), where I’ll be defending myself pro se, and I could use some free legal advice for a guy who’s got a fool for a client…
***. . . *** Sorry. I was a thousand words into my explanation of the events, when I realized I was wasting everyone’s time… I’ll summarize, at least for now:
I drove through a stop sign and then went through the five-blocks-long town at 45 mph in a non-school zone at 11 pm. The posted limit was 30 mph. I did this because the electronic engine temp gauge, overheating warning light, and loud overheating audible alarm started going off when I dropped below 45 mph, which was never necessary until I got to that town and slowed down. I found that the alarms would stop and everything would return almost immediately to normal if I kept the speed to at least 40-45 mph, and, since the town in the middle of nowhere didn’t even have any lights on, let alone have a service station or even a pay phone (I don’t own a cell phone), I felt that my safety (I’ve got some serious medical problems, but I’ll mention only one of them below) might well have been in doubt if I’d let the car overheat.
The town’s cop saw both offenses, but since I’ve long known how not to annoy or piss off a cop doing his job, he only cited me for 40 in a 30.
Questions:
(1): Are the speed laws in Michigan of the “presumed” variety, as in California and some other states? “Presumed” speed laws allow a speeder to legally argue that they were driving safely under the prevailing road and weather conditions and, even though they were exceeding the prima facie posted speed limit, it nevertheless didn’t violate the state’s speed laws. Obviously, that’s the judge’s call and by no means a reliable argument (though it worked for me 2 out of the 3 times I tried it in California), but I can’t even consider doing so if Michigan’s speed laws aren’t of that type.
(2): I went to the informal hearing pretty much just for discovery purposes, since discovery per se is not allowed for that and I didn’t know what the cop would say in court. He testified to the stop sign violation -and- that I was actually going 45, even though he didn’t write up the citation that way. That’s fine for an informal hearing, but what are my argument options if he or the prosecutor raise those issue at the formal hearing? Would I be legally able to object successfully? If so, what grounds should I give? Something akin to objecting to bringing “prior bad acts” into testimony?
(3): Assuming the stop sign and 45 mph are not brought up or I succeed in an objection to raising them, can I argue the whole case as if I’d never done those things at all? I’m not quite so stupid as to imagine that it will never enter into the judge’s mind or ruling in the real world, but if I could construct my case based on that legal nicety, it would be nice.
(4): I’ve had a lot of experience and luck in pro se traffic cases and small claims court in other states, and I’ve read a lot on the Web and purchased an electronic Nolo Press general-purpose traffic defense document, and they pretty much all agree that certain general traffic defenses are available in most if not all states. I even paid for a half-hour consultation with a Michigan attorney who specializes in part in traffic court and has worked with and knows all of the principals. But he told me that he’d never heard anyone even try to use many of what Nolo and the others say are legally valid and not-uncommonly winning arguments.
What do you folks think about these suggestions from Nolo and elsewhere:
(A): [INDENT]"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’s an example of a situation in which this defense might work… :
- 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."
This sounds like I could argue similarly regarding the overheating alarms and the overheating it portended. Is that, in fact, a legally valid argument in MI? Do you knowledgeable legal types out there suggest I try it or skip it?
(B): “Emergencies not of your own making are often another legal “necessity” defense, recognized in all 50 states. To take an extreme example, you should be able to beat a charge of speeding if you can prove you sped up to avoid an out-of-control truck. The key here is to convincingly argue that you were forced to violate the exact wording of a traffic law in order to avoid a serious and immediate danger to yourself or others.”
That seems *possibly *applicable if I could argue that I needed to drive fast enough to avoid the alarming, unexpected overheating, at least considering there was absolutely no visible help for many miles (I didn’t see the cop, obviously!) and I suffer from some serious medical conditions. One of them is severe lower back pain that results if I try to walk more than a block or so. Naturally, if I was forced by my pain to take an oxycodone tablet – something I’ve only done four times in my entire life – I would be guilty of driving under the influence which could well cause me to get into an accident or hit a pedestrian or something. What do you think? Would that likely make the judge want to insert a few dozen rolleyes into his decision if he was posting it online? Or might it at least help as one argument out of several?
[/INDENT]
The formal hearing I’d requested was scheduled without any input from me for less than a week after the informal hearing, and after calling his office, the damned prosecutor has refused to allow me to reschedule so I can have enough time to prepare a better-quality defense! That’s why I need your help right away. So I have one last question for now: I can request a continuance at the formal hearing, right? Does the judge pretty much have to grant at least one? In other words, do I need to be able to make a reasonably good case on the spot in case he refuses to grant one?
Thanks!
