I have a speeding ticket I got a few weeks ago. Today, on closure inspection I noticed it has the wrong date on it.
But below on the payment slip is the correct date 29/07/02.
Can I get out of this [sub](My solicitor thinks so)[/sub]? What sort of letter do you think I should write? Any experience in this area?
Closure = Closer
You can probably get out of it.
As to the sort of letter, it should be something along the lines of “To whom it may concern, I was caught speeding and thus owe you $x, please find my enclosed money order.”
My experiance is that if you were speeding, pulled over, and written a ticket you should pay it. But then, I’m big on ethics.
Medea’s Child:
I don’t agree that ethics compel that result.
If it were as you suggest, any time you notice yourself speeding, you should write a confession and enclose payment of a fine and send it off to the local court.
I believe the correct analysis is: the government has to prove its case against you. You are not ethically obligated to admit to speeding. Of course, you may not lie or deceive in your defense, but that still leaves plenty of room.
As to the OP – I’m not so sure an error in date is a fatal flaw in the summons. It might be possible, however, to go to court, get the officer’s testimony that he doesn’t have an independent recollection of the event, and is merely relying on whatever he wrote on the ticket, and then ask that his testimony be limited to verifying the ticket… and then attack the accuracy of the ticket.
Most judges would permit the prosecution to amend a “scrivener’s error” on the summons, however.
In any event, if you have legal counsel, licensed to practice in your jurisdiction, this question should be directed there. The above paragraphs are not intended as legal advice.
I once got a ticket exactly as you describe, with the day not correct for the date. I pointed out this flaw in court, even walking up to the calendar on the wall to show the impossibility. I also cross-examined the ticketing officer, asking him if the day on the ticket actually existed in either of our lifetimes.
I lost. The judge said it didn’t matter what it said, I was guilty.
But then the same judge said, when I showed evidence that a radar gun’s beam might been been reading the wrong car, “I don’t care if the radar gun was pointed at a stop sign, the stop sign will have to pay a fine.” So maybe it was just the judge, not standard judicial practice. You be the judge.
A friend of mine once got a ticket thrown out because the officer had written down her sex as MALE.
As Musicat story proves, justice is for those who can afford to hire lawyers. Her/his ticket should have been throw out, period! It contains errors of fact! I heard a tale of a drug dealer who beat a conviction because the search warrent had the wrong color of his house!! (no cite, but I’m sure you can find hundreds of examples of miscarrages of justice within minutes on the net)
As far as down-under goes, I don’t know, but I would sure argue that it should be dismissed.
May the mediocrity of several greeting-card salesman inhabit your soul like unmatched buttons in a empty mayonaise jar.
usually in NY the cop has to show for moving violations, and the date won’t get it tossed. Parking violations he doesn’t show, so the rules are tighter and it might get thrown out.
Here in Ohio, the tickets are in sequential order and are the carbonless copy type. This has been implemented in part to prevent friends in the police department from “taking care” of tickets for friends. However, this is also handy in these types of situations. The city solicitor would simply have to produce the book of tickets to show that the ticket prior and the ticket immediately after were such and such date and argue that it was a fairly innocuous error.
If the judge is a stickler for details, you may win. If he’s not, you’ll lose. The question is, Is it worth the four hours plus of your time that it will take to fight it?
One time a cop gave me a ticket but he put the incorrect section number on it. But I didn’t know until I got to court. The court pointed that out, so I had to take it to the cop & he put in the right section number & I had to do the whole thing again.
You can always visit nolo.com they have great law books for the layperson on things like this & alot of other stuff.
I’m no Matlock…but I doubt that this mistake will make any difference at all.
Sure we’d love to think that any discrepency in a citation would get it thrown out. No doubt this is due to many courts ruling for defendents due to police misconduct…leading to the popular perception that criminals are constantly being released due to slight technicalities.* (see gatopescado’s reference to an urban legend above)
I was once in traffic court when a defendant tried to get his case dismissed due to the fact the Police Officer wrote “AM” instead of “PM”. The judge really tore into the guy for even trying to use that to get out of his ticket.
A mistake is just that…a mistake. It has no real bearing on whether you broke the law or not. Especially since the payment slip has the correct date on it.
It is ALWAYS worth the effort to fight a traffic ticket! When I lived in DC, fighting tickets was fun and easy. The cops were so overworked that they usually forgot some crucial detail on the ticket, or were too busy to show up for the court date, or lost their notebook; I got five tickets in three years and successfully fought all of them.
Virginia cops are a little more on the ball, so fighting tickets here is a bit more sporting. I’m one for two on this side of the river.
I have no ethical conflict with disputing a traffic ticket under any circumstances. Paying a ticket without a fight is like overtipping a really bad waiter. Plus, your insurance rates go up.
Oh, you are so wrong. Thie issue isn’t “Did you at some point in your driving career exceed the posted speed?” The wuestion is, “Did you in fact do what this traffic citation claims you did?” If the answer is no, you’re under no legal or moral obligation to fight the ticket and you have to explain it to the judge in those terms.
There is no upside to pleading guilty to a ticket you can reasonably dispute. The fine and point penalties are exactly the same as if you’d pled innocent and been found guilty. There are no brownie points for sucking up to the traffic cop during the trial.
I think I would pay the ticket. If you fight it there will be a trial. You might be able to prove an alibi for the date that was on the ticket. However, if you testify yourself to prove your alibi and the prosecutor then asks directly if the officer ever stopped you on or about that date and gave you a ticket you have to answer yes, unless you lie (which would be a terrible mistake because you have gone from a minor thing to a felony in one jump). If this happens it will probably develop pretty quickly that there was an innocent mistake in the date and the judge, the officer and the prosecutor are really going to be pissed. Remember you are going to want to drive around Sydney in the future.
Pay the man and get it over with. If you were speeding.
A mate of mine got out of a ticket once because the cop wrote that his eyes were brown, but his eyes are blue. My friend argued in court that if the cop got his eyecolour wrong then maybe he also got the colour of the traffic light wrong. The judge dismissed the ticket, and ordered the cop to get his vision tested 
Moral of the story, Ell? I dunno … maybe you could suggest the policeman obviously has a problem with numbers?