First of all, I know no one here on the board is my lawyer - I mostly just want to know if it’s worth it to get a lawyer of my own. Any advice is much appreciated.
This weekend, my husband got a ticket for expired registration. He was driving our truck, which is only used once or twice a year (when something needs hauling), and he either forgot to renew the registration or (equally likely) renewed the registration and forgot to put the sticker on the truck. The ticket for no registration says that it’s got a $750 bond, and then on the back it says that all offences are $75, but it also says that a judge can issue a penalty of the full bond amount. He has a court date in March; what we’re wondering is whether we should go to one of those Traffic Law Centers, or can deal with this on our own. Is the fee likely to be $75 or $750, or something in between? Does it make a difference if he can prove that the vehicle was registered, and he just forgot to put the sticker on it? We’re in southern Illinois, since I presume that location makes a difference in the relavent law.
I don’t know how it is in IL, but here in Texas you can show proof of registration after the fact and get the ticket dismissed. I’ve taken advantage of this fact numerous times.
Yes, I did that too here in Austin. Look for a help number on the ticket. You should be able to call and ask what your local rules are and get personalized advice about what to do.
This happened to me in WA and I had to go to the “mitigation hearing”, which seemed to be the nice name for “where people who got tickets go to whine and try to get leniency from the judge.” I sat through a lot of cases, and most were granted leniency. Many were dismissed completely, but if your case was dismissed, you still had to pay a court fee of (I think) $50. I was able to show that I had renewed my registration, so they dismissed my ticket and I paid the $50.
I had the same thing happen to me twice here in Northern IL several years back now (early and mid 90s): Once for not getting it renewed - made it 8 months (forgetful “oops”). The other was of the latter sort, forgetting to put the sticker on (a lazy “oops”).
In both cases I brought the renewal sticker with me to court (a good suggestion by one of the officers):
In the first case I was charged court fees only (twenty-some dollars) and in the latter I was told to go home, really.
I don’t know how much this infraction has changed in the last ten years or so, but it seemed pretty minor to both of the judges I saw back then.
In Chicago, I got caught with a trifecta: expired registration, expired insurance (didn’t put it in the car) and expired City of Chicago Parking sticker. I went to my court date with proof that I brought everything up to date, and they threw it out.