OK so I got a speeding ticket today (you know, the it’s-the-end-of-the-month-and-I-haven’t-made-my-quota type of ticket). The police officer did not offer me a look at the lidar gun (but, in GA, he isn’t required to, and that’s a point here). I took the ticket and went on my unmerry way. I’m going to pay the ticket instead of going to traffic court because it NEVER makes a difference in this type of case and I could end up paying more than the stated fine.
However, let’s say I’ve got the urge to be be difficult and go to court and plead not guilty. Here’s the scenario I predict:
Me: “Not guilty, your honor”
Judge: “The officer clocked you speeding, therefore, you are guilty”
Me: “I never actually saw the officer use the gun. In fact, I never saw the radar gun, so how do I know he’s telling the truth? I would like to have solid evidence proving that I was speeding.”
At this point I’m sure most judges would be ready to lock me up. Do I have the right to challenge the officer’s word? If I am being accused of violating a law, shouldn’t the accusing party be forced to present solid evidence? Or are traffic violations exempt?
Granted, it would end up costing me more in legal fees to take this on, but what if I just wanted to prove a point, money be damned? What are the odds I could win this?
P.S. As for the “quota” thing, I will never believe that traffic cops are not being required to write X number of tickets. Hell, I see dozens of moving violations everyday that are worthy of a ticket and I’m sure cops see just as many, but don’t want to be bothered.
P.P.S. I don’t mean to disparage cops. I know they put their lives on the line every day for lousy salaries and risk death virtually every minute, but they are not perfect either.
I’m not a lawyer, or a cop. But, I think you always have the right to question the word of your accuser, no matter what the crime.
Since no physical evidence exists, the case before the judge comes down to a question of credibility. Are you, the defendant, more likely to lie or is the cop?
Unfortunately, at that point you become, in a sense, an accuser yourself (you’re accusing the cop of lying). In order to go very far with your case, you’d need to present some sort of evidence intended to show either that the cop lied or at least that he has a known or provable tendency to lie.
If you tried to mount this sort of defense and offered no evidence of your own, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the judge ups your fine when he rules against you.
On the other hand, if you offer a really well-thought-out and interesting argument, some judges would lower your fine just because they find it refreshing when a citizen takes an interest in the law. I wouldn’t bet on meeting one of those kind of judges.
Do I have the right to challenge the officer’s word? If I am being accused of violating a law, shouldn’t the accusing party be forced to present solid evidence?
you might have the right to challenge the officer’s word…but speed guns ( or speed cameras ) will record the necessary physical evidence to stand in a court of law…it’s another point that they might not store the evidence long enuff, since they didn’t expect you to go to court…i wonder what happens then…
The first problem you would face with your tactic is that you aren’t even denying you were speeding. I understand that the burden is on the state to provide the evidence but simply attacking credibility, particularly with no basis, and not offering contrary evidence won’t get you anywhere.
All of the above. Most jurisdictions have way too few prosecutors and judges to deal with all of the tickets written. Plus, the prosecutors are usually low-level (or low-motivation). Call the prosecuting attorney’s bluff for a little bit and you will get a good deal. If you end up going to trial, you are free to put on whatever defense you want (except watch out for that perjury thing). They can find you guilty but all they can do is make you pay the ticket and court costs – no surcharge (theoretically) for exercising your right to a trial by jury.
You may be convicted on a traffic offense based solely on the officer’s testimony that you had been speeding – no additional evidence is necessary.
In any trial, the finder of fact – the jury, or the judge in a bench trial – is responsible for weighing the credibility of the witnesses. The finder of fact is free to believe or disbelieve any or all of any witnesses’ testimony, and the verdict reached will be sustained unless it is completely unsupported by the record, or incredible as a matter of law.
If an officer testifies that the radar gun had a certain reading, then you may ask for foundation testimony before that reading may be admitted into evidence. Typically, jurisdictions have certain statutory requirements as to how often radar units must be calibrated, or how much training an officer must have before using them. In some jurisdictions, the officer must produce such foundational evidence to make a prima facie showing of reliability before the evidence may be admitted; in others, it goes to the weight of the evidence, not its admissiblity. With these principles in mind…
You have the right to challenge the officer’s word, and the judge, as long as you are polite and decorous, is unlikely to “lock you up” as a result. However, he’s also unlikely to resolve credibility conflicts in your favor, since, all things being equal, he is more likely to believe the officer’s testimony than your own. No more “solid” evidence than the officer’s testimony is necessary. Traffic violations are not exempt from the rules of evidence or the burden of proof. However, since the possible penalty is only a small monetary one - no jail time - in most jurisdictions, you’re not entitled to a jury.
In light of this forum being reserved for general questions, and this message board being dedicated to fighting ignorance, I might gently suggest that posters who don’t know what they’re talking about shouldn’t post answers to questions, since they do nothing to eradicate ignorance.
Yes, speeding tickets are a frequent topic here. I give the same info, read Beat that Ticket (for your state), or visit nolo.com (Nolo Press) which writes books on legal matters.
If you read the book you can see there are several other things you can do. What if the officer never shows up to contest your claim on the gun? You could win. Those guns can only be used in an area that has a speed Zone Survey, here anyway, I don’t know about where you are…Thats why Nolo writes books.
I read a book in which the hero is speeding and overtakes a police car.
Instead of panicking, he gestures urgently at the rear wheel of the cop car. The policeman assumes that the wheel is coming loose, makes a ‘thank you’ gesture and slows down.
Let me preface this by saying that this is all second hand knowledge. I have never received a ticket, so I don’t have any real experience.
I would recommend getting a book called “Beat the Cops”. It has a bunch of advice on fighting these tickets.
Always contest. Yeah, it’ll take up a bit of your time, but it might save you thousands of dollars in insurance over the time it takes to drop off your record.
Always reschedule. When the cop puts the court date down, it is usually a date they take care of all their traffic court dates. If you reschedule, you might get a day that he is off, or a date where he will have to come to court just for you. The author states that most cops do no show up to a rescheduled court date.
Here in California, there is a space at the bottom of the ticket that lists dates when the officer is not available. Those are the ones you want to reschedule to.
Hell with that noise. I got out of my last speeding ticket, and got my friend out of one, neither of which required appearing before a judge. I’m not going to knuckle under to some dirtbag one-horse town that generates all its revenue by ticketing the through-traffic. I plan to fight every ticket I get from now on. I want to make them spend more money than they’ll get in return. In court, I want to see the officer’s certification to use the radar gun, I want to see the maintenance records of the gun, I want to see his logbooks, I want to see his copies of the ticket, I want to hear what he actually knows about radar theory, and I want to make him sorry he turned up.
I don’t appreciate the “speed tax” when the limits in many areas are set wrongfully low. Screw speed traps, screw radar, and screw speed limits set 15 miles below the ordinary flow of traffic. If they wanted people to drive more safely, they’d increase the visible police presence, not write tickets to the people who happened to be speeding the day they decide to “crack down”.
I am from GA and I seem to remember reading somewhere that there was a law requiring that you be offered the opportunity to see the radar gun. I was offered that chance when I was pulled over once. Read the ticket closely, I think it might have been on there somewhere. Also check out the Driver’s Ed textbook, I might have seen it in there too.
I always wondered how they could fine you for speeding using radar, unless they could show a correct certified calibration just before and after the ticket was writen. Assumption would be that the radar had the correct reading during the offense then. Don’t forget to include the uncertanty of error in thre calibration records, if the ticket is a close call. Hell, trace the calibration records all the way back to the NIST using the NIST certification number, while your at it. Yes, too much ISO training. They could be calibrating the radar gun through fifteen standards until the NIST certified instrument or gage is reached. Each step would introduce a percentage of error. Graph out the error percentage and win one for statistical mathmatics.
As Bricker said, it’s a matter of credibility. And the police officer’s testimony, he being an officer of the court, is entitled to more evidentiary weight than yours.
I was under the impression that if you ask for a jury trial, you have to pay for it. If I am wrong, please correct me.
8 - re: Jury Trial, you are technically right. There may be a fee but it should be nominal (I spoke too rashly in my prior post). But I mean nominal – in TX it costs $30 even for a multi-million-dollar civil case.
One time I went to court, the judge was a cop before (I asked the secretary) & the cop came to court & did not give the truth. I would think that he would have told the truth, but, no, so I bet the judge was biased being that he was a cop before.
The law requres the officer to inform you of the use of the radar gun and “…the person has a right to request the officer to test the radar device for accuracy.” [from the official code of Georgia, 40-14-5(b)] You don’t necessarily get to see the gun, you can just make them test it for accuracy.
I’ve been called for jury duty a dozen times, but have served on only one jury, a municipal (read “traffic”) court jury. The case involved a guy who was accused of doing 53 mph in a 35 mph zone. During voir dire, the prosecuter asked if any of the prospective jurors had unresolved traffic tickets. Half of the jurors did. All of them stated that they would, nevertheless, be unbiased. I believe that at least one lied. More on that later.
The ticketing officer testified first. He explained how he had calibrated the radar gun using a “30 mph tuning fork” and a “60 mph tuning fork”. He gave the necessary information about time and place of ticketing. He was very credible, but seemed to regard testifying as a waste of his valuable time.
The defence attorney had apparently read somewhere about how to fight tickets involving radar guns. He asked all the right questions initially, but didn’t know how to follow up. For example, he asked the officer if there had been any trees or bushes between him and the defendent’s car. There had been. He then asked if leaf vibration could have given a false reading on the radar gun. The officer looked at him as if he were a complete idiot and responded that the radar gun did not measure vibrations, only speed of movement. I waited for the defense attorney to move in for the kill. “Then what exactly is the radar gun measuring when you calibrate it with the tuning forks?”
But he didn’t. He thanked the officer for his patience and rested his case.
In the jury room, we quickly went over the checklist for the elements of the crime. We unanimously agreed that he was going at least 53 mph in a 35 mph zone at the time and place identified in the indictment. We then had to take a vote of guilty or not guilty. Five votes for guilty, one for not guilty (it was a petit jury). One woman said that although she agreed with all the conclusions of fact that supported a guilty verdict she would not vote guilty because she knew in her heart that the officer had singled out the defendent because he was young. (The defendent was in his late teens or early twenties.) We pointed out to her that he was first clocked at 50 yards away at 8:00 PM on a relatively dark street. There was no way the cop could have identified his species, much less his age. She refused to be persuaded. Hung jury.
I doubt that the defendent was tried again, but I don’t know for certain.
Oh, and the rebel juror was one of the people with unresolved traffic cases who said it wouldn’t bias her decision. Hmm.
If you have the time and believe you’re right, I say fight it, especially if you are in a jurisdiction that allows for jury trials.