I got a speeding ticket in Texas in December 2019. My lawyer requested a court hearing / jury trial.
The Court has been rescheduling the hearing/appearance date multiple times due to Covid. Each time the date is pushed back a few weeks; and now they have indicated that the hearing date is indeterminate. My lawyer is pretty good and keeps on top of all the changes.
I am wondering if this is the norm elsewhere in the country, and how courts are dealing with piling up cases ?
My son got a speeding ticket in New York in March 2020, right before the pandemic. His hearing was rescheduled multiple times - it was scheduled for October 2021 and this week he received a notice that it was rescheduled for August 2022, this time via video ( the others were rescheduled to in-person hearings). I’m really wondering if this will be any speedy trial requirements as it will be nearly 2.5 years between the incident and the hearing.
I also got a traffic ticket in Texas. The lady who cut my hair was married to a lawyer, and he took my “case.” He requested a court hearing, said we needed time to prepare, then started rescheduling it. From what I remember, he said after two or three reschedulings, the judge just goes ahead and drops it. Now, this was back in the day, 40-45 years ago, so it may have changed.
I don’t know about traffic cases, but regular cases are a scheduling nightmare. I have a pretty routine case in federal court in the Eastern District of Washington that has been re-set twice due to COVID, most recently moved from next month to March 2022. We also have a trial that was scheduled in Alaska state court that has been put off for over a year, with no firm date in sight. Trials in Seattle are progressing, often remotely (Zoom), but there are certainly delays.
Related: My Canadian work permit expired last March, and I’m now on my second temporary extension due to COVID-related delays on the paperwork. It doesn’t affect me too much, except that I can’t go back to visit family back in the US because if I leave the county it’s viewed as if I’ve abandoned my work permit renewal.
If you do wind up having the hearing remotely/virtually, don’t forget to turn off the kitty-face filter.
Time is kind of on your side in these things. Police turnover is high, here in North Carolina it’s around 14% annually. An officer who has retired or moved to another agency or gone into non-governmental work and is not available to testify works in your favor.
I can still legit LOL thinking about that one.
At what point does this violate the defendant’s right to a speedy trial?
Im guessing that the safety of court workers/participants will trump the 6th Amendment right of defendants who are also vulnerable to the Covid virus. Emergencies can trump constitutional rights. A draft is one example.