I hope this is the right place to post this, if it should go somewhere else (MPSIMS?), I apologize in advance. Does anybody know about Oklahoma County (not City) traffic tickets? My SO got a ‘following too closely’ ticket last week, which is a 2 point moving violation. Everywhere I have lived besides OK, these kind of minor tickets could be handled by giving a lawyer some money. The procedure, insofar as I understand it, is that the lawyer goes to court in your stead, pleads guilty to a non-moving violation, pays your fine, and keeps the rest of the money as his fee. The result: no points on your license (so your insurance doesn’t go up), the state gets their money (which is all they wanted anyway), the lawyer makes his BMW payment, and you don’t have to waste time in court and traffic school (which makes your employer happy). Now, here’s the rub: none of the lawyers in OKC who we’ve called have ever heard of this. They say we have only three options: 1-Pay the ticket and take the points, 2-Go to court (without a lawyer), plead no contest and go to driving school (no points), 3-Pay the lawyer and appear in court with him, attempt to ‘fight’ the ticket, which they say has almost no chance of working. Nobody seems to understand that we are not trying to get out of the darn ticket, we just want to know what it is going to cost to get it taken care of with no points, personal appearances, and no traffic school. Right now I’m leaning toward just paying up annd taking the points, only because itls the least hassle. I’ve been to traffic school (twice, in my younger, stupider days in another state) and I would not wish it on anybody. Of course, I’m also cheap, so the thought of parting with extra insurance money without a fight makes my skin crawl.
I’ve been to traffic school, too, and all it involved was spending a rather boring 4-hour evening listening to a lengthy lecture and filling out a “test” on content of said lecture, plus I had to drive over to Sullivan to do it, which was actually the most annoying part. Perhaps the Moultrie County version differs from your version.
It seems to me (not to sound snarky or anything) that if you’ve consulted 3 lawyers and none of them has heard of the procedure you’ve described, that maybe there ain’t no such procedure? I see that Oklahoma allows 3 ways to have points taken off your license:
Nothing in there about having a lawyer go to court and plead guilty on your behalf, sorry.
I’d tell your SO to take the traffic school, if it’s an option. I can listen to any number of lectures, plus drive repeatedly to Sullivan, Illinois, if it’ll keep my insurance down.
It wouldn’t be a procedure that is specifically sanctioned by the government. The question is if you can do these things without being present, and I would guess yes because in most jurisdictions it is possible to plead guilty to a traffic infraction by mail.
The idea the OP described is that you send your lawyer, the lawyer pretty much claims “My client is willing to plead guilty to ___ and pay the fine otherwise we’ll need to setup a court date”. If it works, the lawyer can pay your fine, and bring you the receipt. If it doesn’t, you are stuck with a court date.
However, willingness of courts to allow you to plead guilty to a lesser charge when you don’t even show up, and willingness of lawyers to go through with this procedure can put a snag in the plan.
I am not a lawyer.
Partly what the OP was about. But the MAIN point to the OP was the ability to use this procedure to avoid POINTS on the license. It was this that DDG was addressing.
I contribute nothing except to say that here in MD, paying the ticket in the mail WILL result in the appropriate points being slapped on your license.
Usually, for something minor like this, the best way to avoid the points is to show up at court, plead guilty with a few ‘yes your honor’ and ‘no your honors’ thrown in for good measure. So long as your license is relatively clean, you will get PBJ and the fine can be less too.
I’ve had my fair share of afternoons in traffic court and my experience is that lawyers are only used when the points may cause the defendant to lose his license. However the defendant always seems to be there alongside the lawyer.
Also, if the LEO doesn’t show, you can plead ‘Not Guilty’ since you have to face your accuser. This has actually happened to me and is not uncommon.
This may vary with jurisdiction. Here in Kansas City, MO, the procedure described in the OP is common. Basically, your attorney “plea bargains” with the DA, you pay a fine to the court and a fee to your attorney, and no points are assessed. You don’t have to show up, and that does not reflect negatively on you or affect the outcome. Everyone is accustomed to it.
It appears that in Oklahoma City, this is not the norm, and perhaps is simply not done. I suspect it’s more a matter of custom than of specific statutes, but if the judges and DA’s aren’t inclined to participate, there’s nothing your attorney can do. Given the options presented, I’d chose traffic school. If somehow another violation occurred, and there were already points on the license, maybe the traffic school option wouldn’t be offered, and/or there would be danger of losing the license. Traffic school may not be fun, but not having a license for a year would be even less fun.