Mitigating circumstances question

[missydog1]

No, but I think the officer has to show up, and sometimes he doesn't.

[808blogger]

read the hrs traffic section then talk to me.

quote:

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Originally posted by ric

quote:

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Originally posted by 808blogger

remember the burden is "preponderance of the evidence" this is a civil matter not a criminal,

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Uh, except that if traffic offenses were a civil matter, there would not be jail sentences in any cases.

Anyhow, a judge will usually consider a law enforcement officer's testimony to be "a preponderance of the evidence" in a traffic case.

Good luck, but don't get your hopes up.

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[808blogger]

if he does show up, just get him impeached, by asking him a few simple questions about what he did to you.

quote:

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Originally posted by KathyH

No, but I think the officer has to show up, and sometimes he doesn't.

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[Alex]

Wow! Thank you for the responses.
I am getting lost in quotes[].

So is it better to go to court?
I don't know.Technically I am guilty and the judge probably wouldn't appreciate wasting the time.

[808blogger]

did you listen to what I posted?

In all seriousness, you are not guilty, they need to prove that they have standing in court step 1. They will not beable to do that. They need to do that before you even have to plea. you do not have to plea until you understand ALL ELEMENTS of the case,

there are a few simple questions you can ask that will create a situation where the judge will have to throw your case out court. If you want i can post some of them here, however watch the videos,

quote:

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Originally posted by Alex

Wow! Thank you for the responses.
I am getting lost in quotes[].

So is it better to go to court?
I don't know.Technically I am guilty and the judge probably wouldn't appreciate wasting the time.

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[mdd7000]

I had an eerily similar deal a number of years back. Went to pass a slow moving vehicle (another vehicle was also right behind me). The vehicle I was passing sped up and the vehicle behind me also sped up. I had no real way to slow down because of what the second vehicle was doing. It became obvious the 2 vehicles were working in tandem - and the drivers knew each other.

I was able to finally get around them at near 90mph but by then, an oncoming state police car with moving radar had tagged me. He admitted seeing part of what was going on but still ticketed me. I went to court. Plead guilty "with an explanation" (I forget the latin term) and explained to the judge. He sympathized, gave me a fine but gave me a 90 day court supervision. No ticket would be on my record if I didn't get any other tickets in 90 days. No problem.

What the prosecutor explained to me was that I was indeed guilty despite the circumstances. I did break the law. I should have never gone over 55 mph even while passing. I should have braked and pulled over. However, I really didn't think it a good idea to pull over on a remote road with 2 buddies in the other vehicles.

Go to court and plead your case with the prosecutor. Present yourself well. Don't wear pajamas to court... don't get angry and stay polite.

[ric]

quote:

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Originally posted by 808blogger

if he does show up, just get him impeached, by asking him a few simple questions about what he did to you.

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That's right, and then the judge will probably invite you over to his house for a bbq.

[Rob Tucker]

To the best of my knowledge if you insist in taking the ticket before a judge and the ticketing officer does not show up the charge will be dismissed.

It is often the case that the ticketing officer and his supervisor have to weigh the merit of their assignments on any given day and going to court may not be the highest priority.

[Bob Orts]

Alex, You will plead Not Guilty. The police officer will first state the facts based on that persons observation of the alleged violation. Unless the officer testifies to something completely false, disputing their facts does nothing but create an adversarial situation. The officer is testifying to what they observe not what you observed.

Here’s my hypothetical testimony:

You honor, I will not dispute the testimony of the officer, as I was not in his/her vehicle and therefore have no idea what he/she observed. This is the fact as it occurred.

On X at around X time I was traveling (state direction and location). In front of me was a (describe car). This car was traveling X mph based on my speedometer.

After following that vehicle for about X miles, we arrived at (state the specific location) where the road in front of me was clear of all incoming traffic and the pavement marking as a broken yellow line. The vehicle in front of me was traveling about 15 mph below the posted speed limit. After double checking that there was no cars approaching and checking my rear view mirror and saw no cars attempting to pass me, I signaled and pulled in to the left lane and started to pass the vehicle in front of me.

Now this is very important to state:
As I started to pass and pulled along side the slow vehicle, I tapped by horn to let them know I was there. It is my understanding that this is the acceptable way on Hawaii to let the car your passing know your there.

I don’t know if the car I was passing didn’t want to get passed, thought the toot on the horn meant speed up, or was just being confrontational, but they immediately started speeding up as I was passing. I decided to fall back behind them, but as I started to slow, they started to slow. The vehicle that was now behind my car had closed the gap due to the slow speed of the car I was passing and was too close for me to safely fall back behind the car.

At that time I observed a vehicle now coming into view in the opposite direction, so I decided the other driver was playing around so I speed up and safety passed the car. By this time, I had entered a portion of the road where the broken yellow line had become a solid double yellow line.

As I was already committed to the pass where the line was broken yellow, and had it not been for the actions of the other vehicle speeding up and slowing down, I would have made the pass safely while still within the passing zone.

It was not my intention of passing in a no passing zone and I had fully intended to complete the pass while still in a passing zone.

[missydog1]

That's awesome, Bob! [8D]