On 4/14/02 7:14 AM, "Adam Muse" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> the guy was a total asshole and when he wrote up the report of the incident > (since they do not have to appear in court anymore) he deliberately changed > the story to portray me as a prick. Yeah unfortunately MA has done away with the trial part of traffic tickets. This makes it guilty unless proven innocent and without the officer present that�s almost impossible. You can however appeal a magistrates decision. If you appeal then you get a trial with a Judge and the officer must show up. The problem with this set up is that Judges are not really inclined to overturn a magistrates decisions, Judges tend to believe the officer, it forces you to waste two days instead of one, and the Judge acts as the prosecutor. Where is the impartiality in that setup? I have fought three tickets in MA, appealed them all and lost them all. While waiting in the courtroom for all three of those I listened to other peoples cases. Only two were found "Not responsible" by the magistrate and a Judge only overturned one magistrates decision. That�s probably out of 200 or so cases. Not very good odds. I have also fought speeding tickets in NH, MD, and NJ with much better results. In NH I was able to plead guilty to a non-moving violation which saved my insurance bill. In MD the officer didn't show up. New Jersey was weird though, the case kept getting continued forever. The officer was either on vacation or in the hospital or unavailable so the trail date kept getting rescheduled. After about a year of this I filed a 'right to speedy trial' motion and the Judge dismissed the case. My opinion in MA at least is that fighting tickets isn't really worth it. There is the principal of the thing though. If there going to sock you for $200 + a coupla grand in insurance fees the least you can do is make them work for it. If you really want to piss people off then go to your magistrates hearing get found guilty and appeal. Then file a discovery motion and request everything you can think of. Evidently no one does that in MA. It reaaaallllly pisses them off. If you figure your most likely gonna loose anyway you might as well get some satisfaction out of it. If your really interested in fighting your traffic ticket I highly recommend these two books. Fight Your Ticket...and Win! http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y02Y0420419Y4129025/qid= 1018791529/sr=1-1/103-1343070-9833447 Beat Your Ticket : Go to Court & Win http://s1.amazon.com/exec/varzea/ts/exchange-glance/Y04Y0606963Y8296198/103- 1343070-9833447 Both contain forms, explain how to file motions, get discovery, sample questions at trial etc... They are geared mostly toward California law but are adaptable to any state. Expect to spend a lot of time doing research, writing letters, making trips to the law library (although most can be done on the Internet these days), basically spending lots and lots of time preparing for your case. If you do you will find out why lawyers get paid so much and you just might win. Geez this has turned into a long email. Anyway I am reminded of a recent speeding case involving the EZPass thing (or whatever the call it) at Mass Pike tool booths. If you remember they used to have Fleet bank ads on them. The ads were like twice the size of the 15 MPH posted on the signs. Well, the guy argued that the signs where not legal as regulated by NHTSB. Wrong size, wrong color etc. Magistrate still found him guilty. He appealed and the Judge dismissed the ticket. Of course the Turnpike Authority went around and changed all the signs after that. Just goes to show you that the system can work, sometimes. - Cris SPOC NE web site: http://www.spocne.org
