I’m always surprised when I hear about people getting tickets for such minor things such as a burned out tail light. Here we issue an equipment warning ticket which is on a post card. You have 5, 10, or 15 days (depending on the equipment that needs repair) to correct the violation. Then you can have ANY peace officer in the entire state inspect that you corrected the problem. He/she signs the ticket with their ID number and agency code and you put a stamp on it and mail it back to the agency that issued it. No fine, points, etc…
If you don’t take care of it in the allotted time then the warning will become an issued citation. It’s a pretty reasonable system IMHO.
There are literally thousands of answers. Each department has their own procedures when it comes to court.
In my court it will take you a minimum of two appearances to get a trial for a traffic ticket. If you plead not guilty you will get a subpoena to appear.* You then have the opportunity to speak to the prosecutor. The officer is not subpoenaed. If you do not take a plea deal you will be rescheduled for trial. The officer is supposed to be subpoenaed for that. If he’s already working then he won’t show up and they will call him in off the road if needed. If it’s a day off he is supposed to be there. Things happen and sometimes the officer doesn’t show up. It’s not an automatic dismissal. It’s up to the judge to say if he will allow another court date or not. I have never seen it be an automatic dismissal through multiple judges over multiple decades.
Go one town over and their policy can be completely different.
*ETA that initial plea is done by phone. You have the opportunity to either pay or plead not guilty before the date on the ticket. Some offenses you are required to appear in court regardless of what you plan to plea.
Officers write traffic tickets because someone violated some traffic law. They are expected to appear in court in order to personally testify as to the facts (as they know them). If an officer doesn’t appear it could be for any of several reasons. Personal illness, a public emergency that required a large number of officers, miscommunication between the court and the officer, or any other priority that superseded a traffic court appearance. Maybe the officer was still testifying at a murder trial?
I have to dispute the premise of the OP. At every court traffic case where been present the officer was present and testified.*
*Full disclosure: that amounts to one time. I was subpoenaed as a witness, but never called.
Arresting people and making their life hell and abusing your authority is fun. Sitting in wooden chairs in the courthouse lobby waiting to be called by someone with more authority is not.
Yeah, I got one here in Chicago, too, a few years ago. Not Chicago Police, but State Police. Had to get it fixed and show up at court. I didn’t have anywhere to be that day, so it didn’t matter, but they went through the full docket and I was still there. They turned to me to ask what I was still doing there, I said I was supposed to be in court for a ticket, and apparently they somehow just missed my name or something, because they just said, yeah, we’re all good, go on your way, without seeing any of the evidence I brought with me that I had the problem fixed.
At any rate, I only have a sample of two, but both times the officer showed up to court. I mean, if they routinely didn’t show up, don’t you think most people would play the game? (Not directed specifically at the OP, but to other speculators). It’s well known around here that you can roll the dice and hope for the cop not to show up, but it’s a fairly long bet. Rather, you show up for court hoping you can plead guilty and get supervision. This means the moving violation doesn’t show up on your driving record as long as you don’t get another moving violation within six months. That’s what I did the other time twenty years ago I found myself in traffic court for rolling a stop. (Of course, these are specific to my jurisdiction. Yours may operate differently.)
They make you go to court over a stupid equipment ticket? Like I posted earlier, the way we do it here is simple and best. Get the thing fixed and have any officer on duty or not sign it and it’s all done. No court, no nothing. Done.
I’m surprised at your post. I didn’t think FIB troopers wrote tickets. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with a car pulled over on the freeway. At least not in the northern flatlands. I can be going 105 on I-94 and pass nobody. In fact, a school bus full of kids will fly by. Won’t see a single trooper in 100 miles. (I’m not complaining. I got places to get to! )
I can only speak to Toronto, as of about 5 years ago:
Officers are paid while attending court.
In general, police officers do their best to attend all trials, they’re accountable and if they don’t show up for trials (without a legitimate reason) they can be disciplined. Arresting someone and not showing up, uses way more system resources than just not arresting in the first place.
The court system is somewhat broken and in spite of having these new fancy computer thingy’s, they could not (then) figure out a scheduling system to take into account officer availability.
I was rear-ended :eek: (in my car ) and a few months later I was subpoenaed to testify. After 3 hours waiting (+2 hours late) the case was dismissed because the officer didn’t show.
I complained to the police division (same rant as others: missed almost a day of work etc…) and was told the officer was at the courthouse, but they don’t control the scheduling. He was double booked and he decided that he’d testify at the other trial since it was a more serious DUI with personal injury. Fair enough.
Part of this knowledge comes from sharing a house with a cop while I was in University:
She told me always fight every ticket you get. When you plead guilty (i.e.: by paying the fine), you are accepting the maximum penalty for the offence. By fighting it you will never get a higher fine etc. (unless you’re a smartass to the judge). She said if you have some reasonable excuse the judge will lower or dismiss it 99% of the time. You may lose a half day’s pay, but you won’t have it on your record, especially for insurance purposes.
BTW - She told me that police in Toronto (at least) absolutely do have unwritten quotas for the number of ticket they are supposed to issue. Hence the broken taillight tickets etc.
That’s not necessarily true everywhere. Where I grew up if you just paid the fine (by pleading no contest, not pleading guilty) you just paid the fine. If you fought the ticket and were found guilty, you’d pay the fine plus court costs, more than doubling the total penalty.
I don’t think the equipment ticket is usual (though I was unaware of a sort of ticket where you can have any officer sign off on. I’m not sure that exists here. When I say “unusual,” I mean that usually you’d get a warning and be sent on your merry way), but if you don’t see Illinois Troopers pulling people over, that’s highly, highly unusual, IME. I mean, I speed on the Interstates like everyone else around here, but I see pulled over cars very frequently. Driving down from Lake Geneva to Chicago last week, I must have seen about 2 or 3 cars pulled over and then another 2 or 3 state troopers hanging out in the median waiting for someone.
@Doug K. I agree, its probably not true everywhere, but in Ontario the judge certainly has the discretion do that kind of fine, but as far as I know it’s exceptional that they would. They’d have to think that you were deliberately wasting their time, i.e.: contempt of court…
As my roommate said, as long as you make up some sort of reasonable excuse - "My wife called, there was an emergency at home…) they will usually reduce or drop the charge.,
jtur88, professional jabs are not permitted in General Questions. In addition, this is nasty enough to constitute trolling. This is an official warning. Do not do this again.
That is true here. If you pay the fine online or through the mail you pay the amount on the ticket which is the minimum amount for that statute. If you come in to court you will also pay court costs. Although here the court costs are no where near doubling the amount of the fine.
In CA, there is a well-known method to this, especially if you have a clean record.
Return the ticket (with pre-payment in full for the fine) and ask for a “trial by written declaration.”
Return the written declaration at the last possible minute.
Get found guilty. Request a new trial with a judge. Again wait until the last possible minute.
Delay court date as long as possible–I think I was able to get a court date a year after the initial ticket.
If the officer shows up, unless you have a REALLY compelling case, plead guilty and go to traffic school and get no points on your license. After a year, the cop may have better things to do than show up for a year-old ticket, may have retired, may have been transferred, may have been promoted, may be sick. Anyway this worked for me for ticket #1–cop never showed, got a refund on the fine.
For ticket #2, I was really only planning to delay, so my lazy response on the trial by written declaration was just “The officer said I did not stop at a stop sign. I did stop.” (I did, I really did. Well, maybe rolled it a little.) The form came back “Not Guilty.” Cops in my area are notorious for ticky-tack violations while not cracking down on egregious violators, maybe the judge had experienced that herself
Really? We drive down from Milwaukee every 2 weeks or so to see our grand kids. I never see a trooper with someone pulled over. In fact I never see a trooper running radar/laser/VASCAR or any Cessnas above. And the flow of traffic is always well above 80, even in the mid-upper 90’s.
I did get stopped about 3 years ago in southern Ill-annoy but by a County Dep not a trooper while returning from St. Louis. First time since 1996 that happened. I’m sure [deleted] can explain the global conspiracy as to why I didn’t get cited.
But that’s still shitty. It seems set up for people to pay the fine and just go away rather than have their day in court. Here the court cost is built into the fine stated on the cite. The actual fine is the deposit plus all the other costs incorporated and then added to it. Here is a copy of our bond schedule every officer carries. You’ll see how it works.
AFAIK there are no further fees if one fights the cite unless you request a jury trial. Then you will pay a jury fee unless you are found not guilty.
This is not legal advice, I am not a lawyer, yadda yadda yadda.
I presented facts and asked a question. There is no premise. In your single experience the officers showed up, but in mine they didn’t. What is there to dispute?
)
) and a few months later I was subpoenaed to testify. After 3 hours waiting (+2 hours late) the case was dismissed because the officer didn’t show.