NO ONE posting to this thread is my lawyer or is in any way responsible for my decisions and actions!!
Just got back from two weeks away; wish it was the vacation it was planned to be, but mostly it was supporting an ill parent. Fortunately, he appears to be getting better.
Anyway - I have a pre-trial appearance today to plea bargain. Over the Memorial Day weekend, on the NY Thruway/87, a speed trap had been set up and I got pulled over alongside many other drivers. My ticket appears to translate to over $200 fine and points on my license. I was going with the flow of traffic, not passing other drivers - we all were likely going a bit fast.
The statement I got tells me that the purpose of today is to plea bargain; if no agreement can be reached, a trial date to contest the ticket would be set. If a plea bargain is reached, I would need to pay right then and be done.
So - any advice?
I would assume my biggest issue is to request that no points be docked against my license? If I can get the fine reduced, that would also be great, but the points matter more - ??
If I feel / recall that I was going slower, I assume I just state that - ? So if they say “we clocked you at 78,” I would simply state “Your honor, I was going with the flow of traffic - 70 miles per hour.”
Any reason I would attempt to push for a trial? To bet that the Patrolman would not show up? Seems pretty risky and not an approach I would favor unless I knew more about it.
Thank you for any experience/expertise you can share!
I don’t know about New York traffic cases, but usually you don’t plea bargain with the judge. That is done with the prosecutor. You don’t refer to the prosecutor as “Your honor.”
Sometimes you can get a speeding ticket reduced to a “parking violation” (meaning no points for insurance), and often you can get 50% knocked off the fine if you take traffic school or whatever.
Chances of getting off scott-free are zip…so bring a checkbook (or cash) to pay for the full amount and hopefully you return home with some money still in your pocket.
You could try to argue selective enforcement if you weren’t doing anything different from the other drivers. I have no idea if NY has any prohibitions on stating that argument.
Got it - that might make sense, especially because it is basically what happened.
Anyone else? I have a couple of hours before I need to head to the appearance…
Don’t go in throwing around terms you don’t actually understand. The prosecutor will immediately label you an asshole, and likely laugh at you while pretending to talk to the cop about your case.
Go in with a mouthful of humble pie, ask the prosecutor if he can help you minimize the penalty. Maybe you can go to traffic school to avoid points on your license/reporting to your insurance company. Maybe you can plead to a non-moving violation–around here “improper equipment” is a convenient catch-all.
I personally have never been in such a situation. Around here the officer gives you a ticket with the amount of the fine (you have the option of appearing in court). I simply mail in a check for the amount of the fine.
Fascinating - I walked into the clerk, who told me they’d knock down the points to where I could take a course and get those eliminated, with a small reduction in the $ fine - take or leave it. What’s not to take? Waited in line here and there, but whole thing done in a few minutes of actual time.
You might not hear it – or anything else. You might make a deal with the prosecutor before the case is heard, and never get into the court to hear what deal others are making or getting.
That’s what happened to me. I talked to the prosecutor before the time the trial was scheduled to start, and made a deal to reduce my $90 fines to $10, and 2 points to none. But my violations were basically paper ones (expired registration, no proof of insurance in car, burned out tail light) and I brought in evidence that those were rectified. Probably I wouldn’t got such a good deal for moving violations.
Still, the principle holds. A prosecutor might agree to drop some charges and reduce others before you ever get into court, and in some places at least you don’t even need to wait around for the judge to put a stamp of approval on the deal.
I confess that I don’t fully understand the “reduced fine/points just for coming in” policy, which seems to be near-universal. Hell, I took advantage of it once myself. What do the courts get out of it, other than a increased likelihood that people will show up to contest their tickets even when they know they’re guilty?
Less time spent by judges and prosecutors arguing with traffic violators one at a time over what to the public officials is trivial bullshit.
Also, the prosecutor did look up my records before making the deal, so if I was some kind of habitual offender he presumably wouldn’t have made the offer. So there was at least some minimal safeguard process done.
Well - that online course is better than what I had to do years ago!
I had to drive downtown, be there at 8:00 AM and spend FIVE HOURS listening to blah blah blah, taking a ridiculously easy test and then going home.
There were also about 100 or so people in the crowded room as well. No fun.
Online is WAY better!
Plus - you got no point and at least a bit of a cheaper ticket…so…
BTW…at the time I worked for a law firm and was bitching about the unfair ticket and one of the attorneys said, “Let’s look at it this way…have you ever driven over the speed limit?”
Me: “Uh, yeah…”
Him: “Pretty often, I bet…”
Me: “Well, yeah…”
Him: “Well, consider this a one time fine for ALL the times you didn’t get caught and consider yourself getting off cheap.”
It made it less painful to pay the fine. Of course, that cheap ass lawyer could probably have gotten the case dismissed for me, but that is another story…