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#31
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truckinsp wrote: > >Does it ever occur to you that there're unjust cases? Some > >cops could play this game that most people won't bother to > >fight their tickets that they can give out tickets as they > >please. > > Yea......all them cops just looking for you.....aren't YOU special........ He got caught DWW - Driving While White. Why can't you just admit it, cops hate white people. > > >Yeah, while we're on this topic, what is there for them to lose? > >It's real easy for them to write/file one. IF the "victim" wasn't > >convicted, no big deal to the cop??? > > If you weren't on such a poor pitiful me trip, you'd see just how ludicrous > that statement is...... > > >So if you don't have anything positive to contribute, you could > >always exercise your right to remain silent! > > Oh, my, aren't we just a bit sactimonius for someone who is trying to prove > to everybody how "innocent" he his and how those mean bad ole cops are just > always picking on him......... > > YAWWWNNNN.....don't you ever read this NG.....your story is SOOOO OLD and > OVERUSED.......i.e., the cop was picking on me.....i.e., I really wasn't > going that fast, i.e., poor poor pitiful me....... > > Get over yourself and face reality.......you were speeding, the cop DOESN'T > have it in for you.....and if you can't control your car and you can't > figure out fast YOU were going, maybe you should be taking the bus????? You would never ask these questions of a black motorist. |
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#33
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wrote:
> I was ticketed for speeding 55mph on a street with 35mph limit. > I'm thinking about contesting the ticket. First off, that was > a major street with 40mph signs everywhere. I'm hoping to get > an official doc. (presumably from gov.). But where should I do > the search? It depends on who has the authority to set the speed limit on that that (city, county, or state). If it's the state, then try the state department of transportation. You could try using the Freedom of Information Act if they're not forthcoming. I'm not sure if you'll be able to submit any documentation you receive as evidence during the trial though. > Could he possibly have enough time to pace my speed? That depends on state laws regarding pacing. You might want to consider how much time he could have paced you, where he started, and where he pulled you over. If the distance between the two locations is less than what you could have traversed at 55 mph, then you might have something there. > This's my first ticket out of 10 years of driving. Any tips? As others have posted, try the National Motorists Association (http://www.motorists.org). They have a lot of information online and you'll be able to rent a legal defense kit if you join. You might also consider obtaining a copy of "Beating the Radar Rap" 2nd Ed. It has a lot of information pertaining to CA, but I'm not sure how out of date it would be given that it was written sometime in the late '80s or early '90s. |
#34
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"truckinsp" <truckinsp@ nowhere.com> wrote in message k.net... > >If you think I'm just like anyone else that you know (speed and doesn't >>admit it), by all means, skip this thread and move on. You really >>don't need to linger around. > > > LOLOL....as usual, don't bore this poster with the truth....just stroke > his > shallow ego.... > > since when does truth have anything to do with the justice system??? you have nothing to lose by fighting the ticket and everything to gain, whether you were speeding or not is irrelevant. |
#35
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"truckinsp" <truckinsp@ nowhere.com> wrote in message k.net... > >If you think I'm just like anyone else that you know (speed and doesn't >>admit it), by all means, skip this thread and move on. You really >>don't need to linger around. > > > LOLOL....as usual, don't bore this poster with the truth....just stroke > his > shallow ego.... > > since when does truth have anything to do with the justice system??? you have nothing to lose by fighting the ticket and everything to gain, whether you were speeding or not is irrelevant. |
#36
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California speeding ticket
"you have nothing to lose by fighting the ticket and everything to gain" Not necessarily true. In California you lose the right to take traffic school if you contest the speeding ticket. Rob is correct that the truth often has nothing to do with the justice system. Fight the ticket and you will likely lose, regardless of what your little book says. Most California courts accept online traffic school. You still have to pay the fine but your record stays clean and your insurance stays down. Take the school, here is a link for more information http://www.trafficschoolonline.com/?lcode=4013 |
#37
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California speeding ticket
"you have nothing to lose by fighting the ticket and everything to gain" Not necessarily true. In California you lose the right to take traffic school if you contest the speeding ticket. Rob is correct that the truth often has nothing to do with the justice system. Fight the ticket and you will likely lose, regardless of what your little book says. Most California courts accept online traffic school. You still have to pay the fine but your record stays clean and your insurance stays down. Take the school, here is a link for more information http://www.trafficschoolonline.com/?lcode=4013 |
#38
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"truckinsp" <truckinsp@ nowhere.com> wrote in message k.net... > >If you think I'm just like anyone else that you know (speed and doesn't > >admit it), by all means, skip this thread and move on. You really > >don't need to linger around. > > > LOLOL....as usual, don't bore this poster with the truth....just stroke his > shallow ego.... > > I could care less if you speed or not. Extracted from a file I downloaded somewhere on the internet:: PROCEDURES AT THE TRIAL Below you'll see a listing of typical events in the order that they will happen during your trial: The Bailiff calls the case. The defense, that's you, and the Prosecution both reply with "Ready your Honor." The Prosecution will give their opening statement. The Defense will give their opening statement. The Prosecution will present their case, they will have the police officers testimony. There will be cross examination by the Defense. There will be a re-direct by the Prosecution. Any physical evidence that happens to be available will be brought to light at this time. Any diagrams, citations, that sort of thing, then the Prosecution will rest. If you have the grounds, you will make your motion to dismiss, on non-applicable grounds at this point in time. The defense case will include your witness, either you or your passengers. Cross Examination by the prosecution. Re-Direct by the defense, and you as the defense, will rest. Next will follow the rebuttal of the witness by the prosecution. The closing arguments by the prosecution, by the defense, and then the Prosecution gets another chance to make a follow up and respond to the Defense closing. The verdict will be issued shortly thereafter, and then you will get sentenced if guilty. THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION The Prosecution's job is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt through the use of testimony and evidence that all the vehicle code sections that you're accused of violating, had in fact been violated. Typically, the Prosecutor will attempt to prove that the ticketing officer made a visual estimate of your speed and then verified that speed with his laser detector or, by following you with his vehicle. Make a note of the fact that the Prosecution has a case law which supports their side of the story and that would be the State of Kentucky versus Honeycutt which ruled that an officer does not need to be an expert in radar operation, he only has to be competent in the use of radar. The purpose of your objections during the trial procedure and the prosecutions presentation do have two purposes. First of all, you want to break up the pace that the Prosecutor and the arresting officer or the ticketing officer are accustomed to. Primarily you can do that through objections. Anything that appears to be subject should be objected to. Take a look at what follows, for some of the typical objections that you have available to you. Even if you are overruled, the police and the Prosecution have to break up their rhythm in order to wait for the Judge to make a ruling. While the Prosecution is presenting their case you should be making notes as to what was said. Make comments concerning your upcoming cross examination so that you are prepared before you get up to talk. Keep a tally, a running record of the various points of the vehicle code in question. As the Prosecution proves that point of your case, check it off. This will be able to give you a record as to whether or not he has covered all of the points in the case law. If all of the code issues are not checked off and you know that they have not been covered by the Prosecuting attorney, you have reason to make a motion for dismissal. Keep in mind that the Prosecutor must prove all the points in the code beyond a reasonable doubt. Now lets take a look at some of the typical objections that are used in a traffic ticket trial. TYPICAL OBJECTIONS The entire purpose of the objections is to keep the evidence limited to specific testimony which is specifically relevant and admissible to the case. The only one who has authority over this is the Judge. He can say nothing about evidence that is produced in the case unless it is objected to. There is a fine line between how many times you can object and not be reprimanded by the Judge and also how few times you can successfully defend your case without being run over by the Prosecuting attorney. Here are some of the objections that you may come across in a typical trial. OBJECTION, INDEPENDENT RECOLLECTION When the officer begins his testimony, more than likely he's going to read from the copy of his citation. You should immediately object to this since the officer is required to testify from independent recollection. You should also ask to see what the officer is referring to even though you have received a copy of the citation through subpoena. More than likely the Judge will allow the officer to use his notes to refresh his memory, if the officer indicates to the court that he requires the notes to testify properly. This starts everything for dismissal because the sixth amendment to the Constitution guarantees you the right to be confronted with the witnesses against you. In this case, the officer and his testimony, not the citation, are the witnesses against you. If the officer can not recollect the circumstances of your ticket, he may be consider incompetent to testify. You have to prove that the officer is unable to testify without his notes to make him an incompetent witness. If the back of the citation and the officer's notes signifies SB 124, then all he can testify to is SB 124, not Southbound on highway 124. As you'll soon see the notes on the back on the officers citation can hurt the officers' testimony and help you greatly. OBJECTION, FOUNDATION A situation arises when any witness testifies to something that has not been previously established as evidence. For example, the officer states that the speedometer on his police vehicle read 70 miles per hour. It is inadmissible in court unless the calibration for the speedometer had been entered prior to that point in time. OBJECTION, SPECULATION This type of objection occurs when a question is asked of a witness and they introduce evidence that they could not possibly know. For example, they introduce the fact that you could clearly see a street sign or a speed limit sign and there's no way that they could know that. Only you could be aware of that fact. OBJECTION, CONCLUSION In this case the Prosecution would ask the officer to draw a conclusion based on an insufficient amount of facts. For example, the officer volunteered that you saw a stop sign and chose to ignore it. He cannot make that decision because he does not have the facts. OBJECTION, NARRATIVE The officer is allowed to testify in the form of a story rather than a question and answer procedure. He has given a narrative. You have a right to decide if a particular question would have an objectionable response. If he tells the events without questioning, you have no opportunity to object. OBJECTION, NOT QUALIFIED It's similar to the previous objection, but in this instance the witness testifies to something that they have no expertise in. If the officer were to testify that your muffler was defective, he doesn't have the expertise to make that determination since he's not a muffler mechanic. OBJECTION, HEARSAY In essence this is anything said outside of the courtroom by someone who's not a witness. The officer may not state what a witness told him at the scene. The actual witness would have to appear in order for that testimony to be entered into the court record. If one officer wrote a speeding ticket for a radar violation for another officer, both officers must testify, only to the extent of how much they were involved in that particular incident. OBJECTION, IRRELEVENT These are events that may or may not have happened and have no bearing on the particular law that you are accused of violating. The officer may state that you have had a hostile attitude towards him, which has no bearing on the ticket. Your attitude is not relevant in the speedy fulfillment of the law. OBJECTION, IMMATERIAL It's very similar to the previous objection. It may be closely related to the previous facts at hand, but it's really not close enough to remain admissible. Perhaps the officer would bring up your driving record. Your prior traffic convictions have no influence and should have no relevance to the ticket that you were fighting at the present. You cannot be judged on your past performances. If that were the case and you've had 12 speeding violations in the past three years, they would be assuming that you would be guilty of this violation. THE PREEMPTIVE OBJECTION This is when you realize before the fact that the officer is going to drop some bit of information that could be damaging to your case. In this case, you would object prior to the officer even mentioning it, just to disrupt their rhythm enough so that it would throw them off. Be advised that you are only permitted to be able to use this once or twice during the course of the trial because you are going to aggravate the Judge. If you abuse this type of objection, when you have a real objection the Judge will just overrule automatically without hearing your case. CROSS EXAMINATION During the cross examination period you're acting as your own defense lawyer and your main purpose is to discredit any witnesses testimony. In order to create a reasonable doubt in the eyes of the court, remember your opponent, the Prosecution has to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that you are guilty of the infraction that you are accused of. The key to succeeding in this type of examination is to find the details that the police officer can't possibly remember and focus in on them. You should always be prepared for this type of questioning and the best means of being prepared for that would be by knowing the answers to the questions that you are going to ask. You should be prepared for any answer that the officer gives. His best answer will be the facts that he already knows. Lets say you ask the officer the color of your car. On the back of your citation he may have it indicated that your car is blue. What you want to know is what shade of blue. If he tells you the proper shade of blue on your car, move on to another subject. If he tells you he doesn't know, he can't remember the facts of his case, and if he tells you it's white, he hasn't a clue and can't remember what he wrote on the citation. That happens to be great for you. Don't ever argue the case with the officer. Just ask questions. You'll have your chance in your case later in your motion to dismiss. The next criteria for cross examining questions is whether or not the questions will help your case. Don 't ever open up areas or details of an investigation that could hurt your defense. You don't want to ask a police officer why he didn't write you a ticket for a broken tail light and only one for speeding. It would be in the best interest to ask specific questions such as, did you see the oil tanker truck in lane two? You don't want to ask him whether there was any other traffic around because it would be too easy for him to get around that question. If you ask him specifics he has got to remember specifics. It's also good idea to start all of your questions with "Isn't it a fact?" Simply because the officer is under oath and must tell the truth. If he can't remember, he must state, "I can't recall". The more responses like that you get, the stronger your case . If the officer can't recall the details then he certainly does not rule out reasonable doubt. Covering the Prosecution's examination of the officers testimony, note the strong points and the weak points of the officer's testimony. If he states that he has the required 24/16 hour training in radar, leave that alone. If he does not have the required training and was trained by another officer attack that very hard. There are a number of general questions that may be advantageous to be asked during the cross examination. Some of them should include the location of the defendant when the officer first spotted his vehicle. Did the officer always have the defendant's car in site with an unobstructed view from the first contact, until the defendant stopped? What was the distance between the officer's vehicle and the defendant's vehicle at first contact? What was the weather like during the entire pursuit time. What kind of traffic was encountered during the entire pursuit time? In what lane was the defendant's car during the first contact? What was the exact time of day when the offense occurred. How many passengers were there in the defendant's vehicle. What is the specific color of the defendants vehicle. Did the defendants vehicle have any noticeable structural differences? Perhaps custom wheels instead of factory hubcaps. The whole point of these questions is to discredit the officers testimony as much as possible. If he continues to say I don't remember and I can't recall, you are building up a reasonable doubt towards the witness' testimony. The next bright move would be to move for a dismissal. You may request a motion for dismissal for several issues. We are going to try to cover the different motions for dismissal you might want to try to use during your trial. If you're lucky, this is as far as your trial will proceed. Motion to Dismiss Due to the denial of a right to a speedy trial. This should be used at the beginning of your trial if your actual trial date was more than 45 days from the time of your original arraignment. Your date of arraignment is determined by the date you stood up in court and pleaded not guilty. This is a very rare instance and would cause great embarrassment on the part of the court and the prosecutor. If you get to invoke this motion consider yourself very lucky. Motion to Dismiss due to denied access to evidence necessary to your defense. Again this would be used in the beginning of the trial if your subpoena was ignored by the prosecution. In most instances the judge will delay the trial and order the prosecution to provide you the information you requested. You don't want to waive your right to a speedy trial, but you may have to decide if it is worth getting your subpoena information. Its a pretty fair guess that the judge will not let the speedy trial clause slip by. Motion to Dismiss due to insufficient evidence. The time for employing this particular strategy is immediately after the prosecution rests his case. If the prosecution did not prove all of the required elements of the vehicle code you are charged with violating, then you may invoke this motion. That's why we suggest that you keep a check list of all relevant points that the prosecution needs to prove during the trial. It will be a handy reference chart when you explain to the judge that you were never identified as the driver, what road you were on, or any other relevant factors to the vehicle code. Motion to Dismiss due to incompetent witness. An extensive cross examination is necessary in order to prove that the prosecution's witness, mainly the police officer, does not have the recollection necessary to bring back the details of the day in question when you received your citation. If you can get him to state numerously that he does not recall, it is up to the judge in his infinite wisdom to decide whether or not the officer really remembers what happened on the day in question. Motion to Dismiss due to inadequate procedures. This may be utilized if the officer does not follow proper procedures, such as calibrating the radar unit before and after his shift instead of before and after the issuance of the citation. Use the case law to back up your claim of inadequate procedures. Motion to Dismiss due to insufficient evidence, specifically a missing officer. This is used in a case where you have two (2) police officers. One is manning the radar and the other is issuing the citation after the chase. Both officers must appear in court since one cannot testify for the other. This would also apply if the single officer not only monitored the radar, but was in pursuit at the same time. If he does not attend the trial or show up you may move to dismiss. You usually won't have to make a motion if a primary officer is missing. The prosecution will generally drop the case because he knows he has no case without the officer present. The layered defense. The strategies for beating a speeding ticket basically follows a layered defense. In a layered defense you will want one of the following to occur. The officer or officers do not appear. Your right to a speedy trial was denied, or you employed various motions to dismiss after the prosecution rested their case. After these strategies have been exhausted, it time to move to the defense presentation. The following will serve as an example of how to introduce evidence. Lets say that we are going to utilize the introduction of a diagram of the scene of the crime. The clerk of the court will mark the document with an indicator. Usually exhibit A, B, C etc. It will then be shown to the prosecution so that they have the opportunity to object to the presentation of the materials. You will have to identify the document as a diagram of the intersection of X & Y streets. At this point proceed to explain how this diagram will relate to your case. After you have done this, you must move that Exhibit A be introduced as evidence, otherwise, that document or any other document does not automatically become evidence. Once you have introduced all of your evidence, you have a decision to make. Are you going to testify on your own behalf or not. You do not have to testify and you are under no obligation to do so. If you do not testify, you deny the prosecution their right to interrogate you under oath. You also have to consider what you're going to testify to. If you know you were going 62 miles an hour in a 55 mph zone you certainly cannot testify that you were doing 55 mph in that zone because you would be committing perjury, and that' s another crime you don't want to be involved with. Regardless of what the crime is, you've admitted your guilt and you're now subject to another fine. Your only salvation when you take the stand in your own defense is that your testimony and your witness will outweigh the prosecutions case and cause them to lose. After you have testified and your evidence has been presented, if you elect to take the stand, you are ready to rest your case. Make sure that the exhibits that you wanted to be brought out into the trial as evidence, are taken into account by the court. Once all those items are introduced, you can rest your case. Bring up their mistakes because they have to prove that their case is correct. Stay strong in your presentation because the prosecution will get one more final word after you are done. Try to be brief in your presentation. If you take far too long, the judge and the jury will stop paying attention to you. State your case, sit down and wait for the verdict. If you find at the end of your trial, that you are found guilty anyway, it's time to begin your appeal. First of all, an appeal is a bit more complicated than a self represented client defending themselves in court. Hire an attorney. An attorney is going to want one thing out of you, and that's money. You're going to have to give him money up front, he's going to represent you during your case and when the trial is over, win or lose you' re going to have to pay more money. Court transcript will be necessary for the lawyer to go over to review all the facts of the case. When you do go in for your appeal make sure that there is a court reporter present in order to take a transcript of your trial. If there's none there, request one from the judge. He will provide a court reporter for you. If he does not, you already have your grounds for an appeal. RADAR UNITS Today most radar units are extremely accurate. There are some conditions that must be met however, and the conditions are as follows: The road must be flat and straight. There has to be good visibility, there needs to be a minimum of traffic and the officer has to be properly trained to interpret false signals generated by the equipment. Its very rare to find these four conditions existing at the same time. There are a lot of errors that can happen in routine traffic radar operations. How the system fails The national Bureau of Standards tested the six radar units most often used by police departments. All of them produced signals that were false from police radios or CD units. All of the units produced panning errors, when used either out or in of the police cars. There were shadowing errors that appeared on all the units when the police cars speed was added to the targeted vehicles speed. 24 models were tested by the International Association of Chief's of Police for five different manufacturers. Those results were even worse than that conducted by the National Bureau of Standards. In spite of the errors found, none of these units were dropped from use. Some of these units are still probably in operation around the country today. Radar errors can be a combination of many factors but are all linked to one of the following 13 types of errors found. 1. Panning - This happens when the hand held unit is swept across the dashboard of the car or the control unit mounted to the dash of the car. 2. Mechanical interference - the a/c or heating fan in the police car, alternator, ignition noises, rotating signs near the roadway, anything mechanical that is operating in the vicinity of the roadway can throw off the readings. 3. Shadowing - all moving radar units have this problem since the targeted speed is calculated by subtracting the speed of the police car from the closing speed of the target. 4. Batching - this error is caused when the police car is either slowing down or accelerating when the radar unit is still calculating the speed of the targeted vehicle. 5. Radio or Microwave interference - any outside source of a frequency transmission such as a CB radio, Ham or police radio, radar from a local airport, cell phones, power lines, neon or mercury vapor lights, power sub stations, etc., any one of these interference's can throw off the calculations of the radar unit. 6. Auto lock on wrong target - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggest that you disable the auto lock on units that have this function and the newer units no longer have this capability. 7. No tracking history - this recommendation is most often ignored. It's one that is stressed in the operational manual and its impossible to avoid if you are using the unit in the "instant on" mode. The errors occurs when there are multiple targets in the path of the radar beam and the police officer has not observed the average speed reading nor has he checked for any external interference. 8. Harmonic Error from Phase Lock Loop - This problem is common with moving radar units when the police car is accelerating and the target vehicle is moving at a slow speed, typically under 20 mph and an error can occur in the reading. 9. Terrain error - One common factor in radar units is that they always read in a straight line. They cannot read around a turn or the other side of a hill. In this case, the radar unit may actually may be reading another vehicle farther up the road rather than the target vehicle that is going to be issued a citation. 10. Look past error - in this case the radar unit finds a larger vehicle between the patrol car and the targeted vehicle and locks on that one and gives an entirely different reading for an entirely different vehicle. 11. Multiple bounce error - These occur usually when there is an overpass in the vicinity of the chase and the radar beam is reflected off of multiple targets at the same time. The vehicle in question, an overpass, a sign, etc. will result in an improper reading. 12. Reflection error - If the antenna part of a radar unit is hung on the outside of the police officer's car , the beam can actually hit a side window or part of the window and a false reading results which will throw off the actual reading for the targeted vehicle. 13. Arm Swing Error - When the officer swings the unit up to point at the targeted vehicle, the speed of his arm is added to the speed of the vehicle and throws off the reading generated by the vehicle. In addition to these errors listed above, there are several ways that police officers can actually cheat on the reading. This has come about because some smaller communities have found that traffic tickets are an extremely effective way to raise money for their budget. These intentional errors may include the following: 1. Target one vehicle that is speeding and give out many speeding tickets to other people. 2. Whistle into the CB on the patrol car which will give out a high frequency pitch and will alter the speed that shows up on the radar unit. 3. Aim the unit at the ground and swing the unit up into the air. 4. Clock an airplane that's flying very low. 5. Set the car mounted unit to calibrate and the unit will register whatever the patrol car vehicle's speed is at the time. TYPICAL CROSS EXAMINATION QUESTIONS In the Cross Examination section it was pointed out that the most important factor to a successful cross exam is to concentrate on as many of the small details as possible. This section will take the questioning for the radar portion of a cross examination and take it apart so that it will be easier to follow. All of the questions may not apply to your particular case. Just use these questions as an outline for your own particular direction and not as a script for use in the courtroom. You will also need to analyze the judge's feelings as far as your line of questioning. Since you are defending yourself, you will not likely be granted as much freedom during the cross examination. Maintain a steady and rational pace and you should keep the judge satisfied. The following line of questioning has been derived from the "Attorney's Deposition Guide" which is available from the National Motorists Association. Introductory Questions: These questions are formulated to establish the relevant facts in the case and to create a friendly atmosphere with the ticketing officer. 1. What specific type of radar were you using when the ticket was issued? Do not accept an answer like "Doppler Radar" or "Moving Radar" 2. Would you please tell the facts of the ticket as you remember them? Remember your grounds for objections concerning the officer reading directly from the citation. 3. Was your audio Doppler working at the time the citation was issued? If the officer claims he doesn't know what audio Doppler is, remember this response when you get to the question section on audio Doppler. 4. What speed was your audio warning set on? If the officer claims he doesn't know what audio warning is, remember this response when you get to the question section on audio alarm. 5. Was your automatic speed lock working? A crucial response. If yes, you have started building your case for operational error. If no, don 't worry, there's a lot more opportunities. 6. Were you using a manual on-off switch or other radar detector defeating mechanism in association with your radar unit? 7. Were you stationary or moving when your radar unit's alert went off? 8. Was the target vehicle coming towards you or moving away from you? 9. Did you see the target vehicle preceding the time your radar unit's audio alarm went off? Another crucial answer. You have essentially asked the officer if he took a traffic history before issuing the citation. If he indicates that he did see you, ask the next three questions. If he did not see you, stop your preliminary questions here. 10. Were you able to determine the target vehicle's speed from a visual observation? 11. What was the apparent speed of the target vehicle? 12. About how many seconds elapsed between the time you first observed the target vehicle and the time your audio alarm went off? Establish the officer's qualifications: These questions are directed towards the officer's training on the operation of the radar unit. Keep in mind the national standard of 24 hours of classroom time followed by 16 hours of field training. 1. How many years have you been a police officer? This is just a set up for questions to follow. 2. How long have you operated radar units? Again, a set up question. 3. Have you received formal instruction and training in the operation of radar? If he says no, contain your smile with your best poker face! 4. Under what circumstances did you receive your training? This will likely have a variety of responses. A home run for you would be training received from his own department by another officer. 5. How many hours of classroom instruction did you receive? A crucial response. No officer generally has 14 hours of classroom. Remember Kentucky v. Honeycutt is going to be used by the prosecution to justify the officer having less than the 24 hours. If the officer has less than three or four hours he is likely not qualified. This will become painfully obvious to the officer as you continue you line of questioning. 6. How long ago did you receive this training? If it was several years ago it could indicate that he is not current in the proper operation of the specific unit. It could also indicate that he was trained on a different unit than was used for the citation. 7. How many officers took this training with you? If it was an extremely large class, try to downgrade his level of training by asking additional questions such as: Was the training a lecture? Were you seated auditorium style? Where were you seated? Did you have any other classes that day? Were questions allowed? Did you ask any questions? If the officer can 't recall the particulars of his radar training class, ask how can he remember the subject taught? 8. Who taught this classroom portion of the radar course? If it was another officer, question that officer's training credentials and ask for the trainer's certification. If it was the manufacturer, you have a potentially biased source of training. 9. Since your initial training, have you had any additional radar course work? He likely has not. If he has, find out the circumstances just the same as you questioned for the initial classroom training. 10. How many hours of one-on-one field training with a professional instructor have you had in the operation of radar units? If he rode along with another officer, again ask for that officer's training credentials. If it was a factory representative, it was likely for thirty minutes or less with multiple officers in the car at the time. Keep pressing for an accurate answer. 11. Do you believe yourself to be a competent radar operator? What else can he say except yes? 12. Do you hold a certification in the use of radar? Not likely but doesn't matter either way. 13. When was your initial training in the use of the (fill in the actual unit used)? If he hasn't received specific training in the actual unit, remember your need for a poker face. 14. Did your training include the use of other radar units? The goal is to subdivide his training and show that he has had little or no training in the specific radar used in our case. Establish the officer's trust in the radar unit: This is a faith check for the officer. He likely isn't aware that you know some of the downfalls of the particular unit involved in your case. 1. Do you believe the (fill in actual unit used) to be a good radar unit? What do you think the answer will be? 2. Have you ever encountered any problems with the unit? Not likely, but if so, get the specifics. 3. Are you permanently assigned to one specific radar unit? Again, not likely since most departments move units around. 4. Do you believe that there are individual differences among radar units of the same model? Will one unit have an idiosyncrasy that another might not have? Likely answer is they all work alike. If he has noticed differences, get the specifics. 5. Do you believe the (actual unit used) gives deceptive or false readings? This is a crucial question. If he says no, you can likely catch him with the manufacturer's documentation (remember your subpoena). He will likely reply that he has never seen any false readings. If so, skip the next question. 6. About what percent of the time does your radar unit give these false readings? Make a note of the percentage. 7. Do you believe that you can always tell when the unit is giving a false reading? He will likely say that he can always tell, which sets up your upcoming reasonable doubt argument later in your presentation. 8. Is there a special number or symbol that appears on the readout to indicate a false reading? Of course not. 9. Does the unit give some visual indication that the reading is questionable? No it doesn't. 10. How, then, can you tell that the reading you are getting is false? He will likely say that there is no target in sight or the target is clearly not speeding. If he says that false readings only occur when there is no target present, then that is essentially saying that the unit never gives false readings. If he says that he can always tell that the target vehicle isn't doing the speed indicated, finish this section with the remaining series of questions. 11. Since there are no special indications of a false reading, does that mean that all 82 mph readings aren't false? Of course not. 12. So the false reading could be 20 mph or 70 mph? It certainly can be. If he says anything other than yes he is either trying to evade the questions or technologically incompetent. 13. The radar could give a reading of say 70 mph, but you could clearly see, for example, that the target vehicle was only going 30 mph? He should agree with this question. 14. What if the speed limit is 55 mph, and the same 70 mph false reading shows up. Is that possible? He should say that this could happen. You should use the speed limit of your particular case in all questions. 15. Presuming the car approaching you was going 55 mph, could you recognize that the radar was malfunctioning? If he says yes, press on with the remaining questions. If he says no then end this section with this question. 16. If an approaching car is traveling at 55 mph and the radar gives a false reading of 56, could you recognize that? Not on his best day. 17. If an approaching car is traveling at 55 mph and the radar gives a false reading of 57, could you recognize that? Keep going until he commits to a specific speed he could recognize or until it becomes obvious that he actually can't recognize the actual speed. If he commits to a speed within the range of your citation, you have established reasonable doubt. Audio Doppler, audio alarm and automatic speed lock: These are special features that most radar units incorporate to make the officer's job a little easier. Audio Doppler is on every radar unit except the Speedgun Series. If audio Doppler is used, it will aid the officer in confirming that the target vehicle is speeding. The common problem is that the audio Doppler can be turned down or completely off, thereby contributing zero to the unit's reliability. The audio alarm is a preset speed that the radar unit will sound the alarm to let the officer know he has a fish on his line. The only way to disenable the alarm is to dial in a very high setting such as 99 mph. The automatic speed lock is the worst feature of any radar unit. Once the unit reads a specific speed the unit then locks that speed in on the display. The officer then has no way of knowing if the reading is false or a momentary reading. This section should establish the officer's normal operating methods. 1. Does your radar unit have an audio Doppler? That is, a continuous audio signal tone that converts the radar unit's Doppler shift into an audible tone? This answer should be yes unless the radar unit is a Speedgun. If it is a Speedgun, skip to question 13. 2. Does the audio Doppler have a volume control? It does. 3. Do you ever use your audio Doppler? If no, ask the question one more time and skip to question 13. If he says yes, press on. 4. About what percent of the time do you use the audio Doppler? Make a note and subtract from 100 % for question 10. 5. When you operate your radar unit with the audio Doppler on, do you operate at full volume? Unless he can't hear at all, he should say no. 6. At what volume do you normally operate the audio Doppler? This is important if it is a very low setting. 7. Do you ever turn it off? Unless he answered question 4 with none, he will likely say yes. 8. Why do you turn it off? It is extremely annoying, any other answer is a cover up. 9. Does the audio Doppler ever interfere with your use of the police radio or conversation with other officers? Of course it does. 10. So you operate your radar unit with the audio Doppler turned off about (fill in the number from question 4) percent of the time. 11. During the remaining time, how often do you operate the radar unit with the volume on soft? Note this percent amount. 12. Do you consider the audio Doppler a valuable tool to prevent operator errors? This is important if he replies "no" and it ends up that he didn't use it during your citation. 13. Is your radar unit equipped with a dial which will allow you to select a speed above which an audio alarm will sound if a violation speed is detected? All radar units have this feature. 14. Let's refer to that feature as an audio alarm. Do you commonly use this feature of the radar unit? He has to unless he sets it so high as to never work. 15. About what percent of the time do you use the audio alarm? If he doesn't say 100%, then ask him how he disengages the alarm. 16. If the speed limit is 55 mph, what speed do you normally dial in as the pre-set violation speed? Note the speed, but this answer isn't crucial. 17. Do you find the audio alarm to be beneficial? He will likely say that it is sometimes useful. 18. If a violation speed causes the alarm to sound, you only need to flip a switch to lock in that speed on the radar unit? That's how the unit operates. 19. Does the radar unit also have a mode which will allow the unit to automatically lock in the violation speed? Yes, it does. 20. Do you ever use the automatic speed lock function? If he says "no': ask the question again and emphasize the word "ever" while giving the officer a skeptical look. If he still says no, end this question section here. If he says yes, press on. 21. About what percent of the time do you use the automatic speed lock function? Note the amount. 22. Do you find the automatic speed lock convenient? Of course it is. 23. Do you use the automatic speed lock for any other reasons? This should be interesting. 24. Was the use of the automatic speed lock included in your training? This answer doesn't really matter. Determining if the officer uses a visual backup: The typical officer has a standard pattern of testimony. This pattern normally indicates that the officer observed the defendant's vehicle doing approximately X mph and he then used the radar unit as a backup to his visual estimation of the speed. This is pure fantasy since the maximum distance a highly trained officer can make a visual identification from is approximately 500 feet. The radar unit can make the same identification for up to 5,000 feet. As a result, the audio alarm will sound before the officer can make the visual identification. This section is designed to verify this fact and try to get the officer to make a statement that will come back to haunt him later in your presentation. 1. Are you familiar with the term "traffic history?" I want to verify that this term refers to the continuous observation of the traffic by an officer. 2. With regard to speeding tickets, it is normal for an officer to observe the traffic patterns for several seconds - usually three to five - before he sees what he believes to be a speeding violation. In other words, three to five seconds before the radar unit sounds the audio alarm. Do you agree with this assessment? He will have to in order to keep up the fantasy of the radar for backup. 3. With this definition in mind, have you EVER taken a traffic history prior to issuing a speeding citation? He should say yes. If he says no, refer to the answer to question 5. 4. What percentage of the time would you say that you take a traffic history? This number will likely be very high. 5. Do you feel that it is important to take a traffic history in speeding cases? He will likely say yes. If he says no, then you have a valid argument that he was relying solely on the radar unit. 6. At what approximate distance can you determine the exact speed of a target vehicle? Most officers will say about 500 feet. If he doesn't give you a real answer, set up a specific scenario, such as, in the median of a level and straight, uncrowded highway. If he still doesn't answer suggest the 500 foot figure. If he doesn't accept 500 feet, adjust the number until he agrees to a specific distance. 7. When you take a traffic history and make the visual estimate of speed, do you do so before the radar unit sounds the audio alarm? This is a very crucial question. If he says yes, he's had it since the radar unit has a range of at least 1000 feet. Proceed with questions 8 and 9. If he says no, then he hasn't taken a traffic history. Finish all the rest of the questions in this section. 8. What is the approximate range of your radar unit? He will likely say he doesn't know. Toss him a high figure in the range of 3,000 to 5,000 feet. If he still doesn't know ask if he would be surprised to know that the radar unit has a range of at least 3,000 feet. if he says yes he would be surprised, you just caught him in a crucial technical question. 9. Despite knowing this range you still contend that the radar unit does not sound the audio alarm before you are able to identify the speed of a vehicle? The real escape for him is the answer "no". He won't say that, he will most likely say sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. 10. If the radar unit sounds the audio alarm before you have determined that the target vehicle is speeding, how can you say that you have taken a traffic history? He will have to say that the alarm alerts him to the presence of a potential speeder. 11. Do you look at the radar unit to see what the reading is? He will likely say that he looks. if he denies looking he has to admit that he knows the vehicle is going at least as fast as the audio alarm setting. 12. Does the fact that the audio alarm has sounded influence your judgment as you make your visual estimate of speed? In other words, are you more likely to agree that a target vehicle is traveling a certain speed since the audio alarm has already acknowledged this fact? He should agree. If he doesn't ask him why he doesn't just run the audio alarm setting up so high that it will never go off? Determining knowledge of beam width and range: Remember that Kentucky v Honeycutt will be used to show that the officer does not need to be an expert in the field of radar. You are trying to demonstrate to the court that the officer lacks certain basic knowledge that he should have. 1. Do you know what the normal range of your radar unit is? Get him to give you a figure of some sort. Then give the manufacturer's data if you have it. If not it will likely be at least 3,000 feet. 2. At a distance of 1,000 feet, how wide is the radar beam? Again, try to pin him down to a figure of some kind. Figure a traffic lane to be 12 feet. In reality, a 12 degree beam will measure 287 feet at a distance of 1,000 feet while a 24 degree beam will measure 574 feet. 3. How far away from the unit will the beam travel before it covers one lane? Again, get a figure. The true amount is about 50 feet but most officers will guess around 500 feet. 4. With what degree of confidence can you aim your antenna at a specific lane of traffic at a distance of 500 feet. The answer is no confidence at all. 5. In the stationary mode, you can operate to record traffic going away from you or coming towards you, is that correct? This is correct. 6. Can the radar unit distinguish between traffic directions? It will pick up traffic in either direction. 7. In the moving mode, can the radar unit pick up traffic in both directions? The Speedgun 8 unit can, most all others can only pick up traffic coming towards the radar unit. 8. What types of things will stop the radar beam? For example, will the radar read through bushes and tall grass? Radar can pass through light brush 9. Can you get the speed of a vehicle around a curve or over a hill? Not even possible. Remember, the beam travels in a straight line. 10. Will the beam bounce off a metal building or sign? Certainly. 11. If the beam bounces off something could it pick up the speed of another vehicle at an angle to the radar unit?. Absolutely. 12. Can a high-voltage power line interfere with the radar beam? Again, absolutely. 13. What about neon signs or street lights, can they cause interference? Notice a pattern here? Final questions: These are designed to apply the specifics of your case against the answers the officer gave for the typical operation of the unit. 1. Could you again recall the facts of this particular citation? 2. Was your audio Doppler on at the time and if so how loud? 3. What speed was the audio alarm set for? Did you make any adjustments to it during your shift? 4. Was the radar unit's automatic speed lock engaged? 5. Were you using a manual on-off switch? 6. Were you in a stationary or moving mode at the time? 7. Was the defendant approaching you or traveling away from you? 8. Did you see any other traffic around the defendant's vehicle? If so, what types and where were they located? 9. Was there any traffic moving in the same direction as you? 10. Did you see the defendant before your audio alarm sounded? 11. Did you determine an estimated speed of the defendant's vehicle based on your visual ident- ification? If so what was your point of reference? 12. How many seconds passed between the time you first saw the defendant and the time your audio alarm sounded? 13. Were there any power lines in the area? Any cars or trucks with CB radio antennas? Were you using your police radio at the time? Was your police car's engine running at the time? 14. As for the calibration of the radar unit, at what times before and after you wrote the defendant's citation did you use the radar unit's internal calibration function? 15. At what times before and after you wrote the defendant's citation did you use an external tuning fork for calibration? 16. In your opinion, what is the difference between the internal calibration and the tuning fork calibration methods? 17. Do you feel that one calibration method is more accurate than the other? Questions 14 through 17 are critical to establish the calibration procedure followed by the officer. Remember that case law has shown that the officer should calibrate, with tuning forks, prior to and immediately after writing a citation. |
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"truckinsp" <truckinsp@ nowhere.com> wrote in message k.net... > >If you think I'm just like anyone else that you know (speed and doesn't > >admit it), by all means, skip this thread and move on. You really > >don't need to linger around. > > > LOLOL....as usual, don't bore this poster with the truth....just stroke his > shallow ego.... > > I could care less if you speed or not. Extracted from a file I downloaded somewhere on the internet:: PROCEDURES AT THE TRIAL Below you'll see a listing of typical events in the order that they will happen during your trial: The Bailiff calls the case. The defense, that's you, and the Prosecution both reply with "Ready your Honor." The Prosecution will give their opening statement. The Defense will give their opening statement. The Prosecution will present their case, they will have the police officers testimony. There will be cross examination by the Defense. There will be a re-direct by the Prosecution. Any physical evidence that happens to be available will be brought to light at this time. Any diagrams, citations, that sort of thing, then the Prosecution will rest. If you have the grounds, you will make your motion to dismiss, on non-applicable grounds at this point in time. The defense case will include your witness, either you or your passengers. Cross Examination by the prosecution. Re-Direct by the defense, and you as the defense, will rest. Next will follow the rebuttal of the witness by the prosecution. The closing arguments by the prosecution, by the defense, and then the Prosecution gets another chance to make a follow up and respond to the Defense closing. The verdict will be issued shortly thereafter, and then you will get sentenced if guilty. THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION The Prosecution's job is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt through the use of testimony and evidence that all the vehicle code sections that you're accused of violating, had in fact been violated. Typically, the Prosecutor will attempt to prove that the ticketing officer made a visual estimate of your speed and then verified that speed with his laser detector or, by following you with his vehicle. Make a note of the fact that the Prosecution has a case law which supports their side of the story and that would be the State of Kentucky versus Honeycutt which ruled that an officer does not need to be an expert in radar operation, he only has to be competent in the use of radar. The purpose of your objections during the trial procedure and the prosecutions presentation do have two purposes. First of all, you want to break up the pace that the Prosecutor and the arresting officer or the ticketing officer are accustomed to. Primarily you can do that through objections. Anything that appears to be subject should be objected to. Take a look at what follows, for some of the typical objections that you have available to you. Even if you are overruled, the police and the Prosecution have to break up their rhythm in order to wait for the Judge to make a ruling. While the Prosecution is presenting their case you should be making notes as to what was said. Make comments concerning your upcoming cross examination so that you are prepared before you get up to talk. Keep a tally, a running record of the various points of the vehicle code in question. As the Prosecution proves that point of your case, check it off. This will be able to give you a record as to whether or not he has covered all of the points in the case law. If all of the code issues are not checked off and you know that they have not been covered by the Prosecuting attorney, you have reason to make a motion for dismissal. Keep in mind that the Prosecutor must prove all the points in the code beyond a reasonable doubt. Now lets take a look at some of the typical objections that are used in a traffic ticket trial. TYPICAL OBJECTIONS The entire purpose of the objections is to keep the evidence limited to specific testimony which is specifically relevant and admissible to the case. The only one who has authority over this is the Judge. He can say nothing about evidence that is produced in the case unless it is objected to. There is a fine line between how many times you can object and not be reprimanded by the Judge and also how few times you can successfully defend your case without being run over by the Prosecuting attorney. Here are some of the objections that you may come across in a typical trial. OBJECTION, INDEPENDENT RECOLLECTION When the officer begins his testimony, more than likely he's going to read from the copy of his citation. You should immediately object to this since the officer is required to testify from independent recollection. You should also ask to see what the officer is referring to even though you have received a copy of the citation through subpoena. More than likely the Judge will allow the officer to use his notes to refresh his memory, if the officer indicates to the court that he requires the notes to testify properly. This starts everything for dismissal because the sixth amendment to the Constitution guarantees you the right to be confronted with the witnesses against you. In this case, the officer and his testimony, not the citation, are the witnesses against you. If the officer can not recollect the circumstances of your ticket, he may be consider incompetent to testify. You have to prove that the officer is unable to testify without his notes to make him an incompetent witness. If the back of the citation and the officer's notes signifies SB 124, then all he can testify to is SB 124, not Southbound on highway 124. As you'll soon see the notes on the back on the officers citation can hurt the officers' testimony and help you greatly. OBJECTION, FOUNDATION A situation arises when any witness testifies to something that has not been previously established as evidence. For example, the officer states that the speedometer on his police vehicle read 70 miles per hour. It is inadmissible in court unless the calibration for the speedometer had been entered prior to that point in time. OBJECTION, SPECULATION This type of objection occurs when a question is asked of a witness and they introduce evidence that they could not possibly know. For example, they introduce the fact that you could clearly see a street sign or a speed limit sign and there's no way that they could know that. Only you could be aware of that fact. OBJECTION, CONCLUSION In this case the Prosecution would ask the officer to draw a conclusion based on an insufficient amount of facts. For example, the officer volunteered that you saw a stop sign and chose to ignore it. He cannot make that decision because he does not have the facts. OBJECTION, NARRATIVE The officer is allowed to testify in the form of a story rather than a question and answer procedure. He has given a narrative. You have a right to decide if a particular question would have an objectionable response. If he tells the events without questioning, you have no opportunity to object. OBJECTION, NOT QUALIFIED It's similar to the previous objection, but in this instance the witness testifies to something that they have no expertise in. If the officer were to testify that your muffler was defective, he doesn't have the expertise to make that determination since he's not a muffler mechanic. OBJECTION, HEARSAY In essence this is anything said outside of the courtroom by someone who's not a witness. The officer may not state what a witness told him at the scene. The actual witness would have to appear in order for that testimony to be entered into the court record. If one officer wrote a speeding ticket for a radar violation for another officer, both officers must testify, only to the extent of how much they were involved in that particular incident. OBJECTION, IRRELEVENT These are events that may or may not have happened and have no bearing on the particular law that you are accused of violating. The officer may state that you have had a hostile attitude towards him, which has no bearing on the ticket. Your attitude is not relevant in the speedy fulfillment of the law. OBJECTION, IMMATERIAL It's very similar to the previous objection. It may be closely related to the previous facts at hand, but it's really not close enough to remain admissible. Perhaps the officer would bring up your driving record. Your prior traffic convictions have no influence and should have no relevance to the ticket that you were fighting at the present. You cannot be judged on your past performances. If that were the case and you've had 12 speeding violations in the past three years, they would be assuming that you would be guilty of this violation. THE PREEMPTIVE OBJECTION This is when you realize before the fact that the officer is going to drop some bit of information that could be damaging to your case. In this case, you would object prior to the officer even mentioning it, just to disrupt their rhythm enough so that it would throw them off. Be advised that you are only permitted to be able to use this once or twice during the course of the trial because you are going to aggravate the Judge. If you abuse this type of objection, when you have a real objection the Judge will just overrule automatically without hearing your case. CROSS EXAMINATION During the cross examination period you're acting as your own defense lawyer and your main purpose is to discredit any witnesses testimony. In order to create a reasonable doubt in the eyes of the court, remember your opponent, the Prosecution has to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that you are guilty of the infraction that you are accused of. The key to succeeding in this type of examination is to find the details that the police officer can't possibly remember and focus in on them. You should always be prepared for this type of questioning and the best means of being prepared for that would be by knowing the answers to the questions that you are going to ask. You should be prepared for any answer that the officer gives. His best answer will be the facts that he already knows. Lets say you ask the officer the color of your car. On the back of your citation he may have it indicated that your car is blue. What you want to know is what shade of blue. If he tells you the proper shade of blue on your car, move on to another subject. If he tells you he doesn't know, he can't remember the facts of his case, and if he tells you it's white, he hasn't a clue and can't remember what he wrote on the citation. That happens to be great for you. Don't ever argue the case with the officer. Just ask questions. You'll have your chance in your case later in your motion to dismiss. The next criteria for cross examining questions is whether or not the questions will help your case. Don 't ever open up areas or details of an investigation that could hurt your defense. You don't want to ask a police officer why he didn't write you a ticket for a broken tail light and only one for speeding. It would be in the best interest to ask specific questions such as, did you see the oil tanker truck in lane two? You don't want to ask him whether there was any other traffic around because it would be too easy for him to get around that question. If you ask him specifics he has got to remember specifics. It's also good idea to start all of your questions with "Isn't it a fact?" Simply because the officer is under oath and must tell the truth. If he can't remember, he must state, "I can't recall". The more responses like that you get, the stronger your case . If the officer can't recall the details then he certainly does not rule out reasonable doubt. Covering the Prosecution's examination of the officers testimony, note the strong points and the weak points of the officer's testimony. If he states that he has the required 24/16 hour training in radar, leave that alone. If he does not have the required training and was trained by another officer attack that very hard. There are a number of general questions that may be advantageous to be asked during the cross examination. Some of them should include the location of the defendant when the officer first spotted his vehicle. Did the officer always have the defendant's car in site with an unobstructed view from the first contact, until the defendant stopped? What was the distance between the officer's vehicle and the defendant's vehicle at first contact? What was the weather like during the entire pursuit time. What kind of traffic was encountered during the entire pursuit time? In what lane was the defendant's car during the first contact? What was the exact time of day when the offense occurred. How many passengers were there in the defendant's vehicle. What is the specific color of the defendants vehicle. Did the defendants vehicle have any noticeable structural differences? Perhaps custom wheels instead of factory hubcaps. The whole point of these questions is to discredit the officers testimony as much as possible. If he continues to say I don't remember and I can't recall, you are building up a reasonable doubt towards the witness' testimony. The next bright move would be to move for a dismissal. You may request a motion for dismissal for several issues. We are going to try to cover the different motions for dismissal you might want to try to use during your trial. If you're lucky, this is as far as your trial will proceed. Motion to Dismiss Due to the denial of a right to a speedy trial. This should be used at the beginning of your trial if your actual trial date was more than 45 days from the time of your original arraignment. Your date of arraignment is determined by the date you stood up in court and pleaded not guilty. This is a very rare instance and would cause great embarrassment on the part of the court and the prosecutor. If you get to invoke this motion consider yourself very lucky. Motion to Dismiss due to denied access to evidence necessary to your defense. Again this would be used in the beginning of the trial if your subpoena was ignored by the prosecution. In most instances the judge will delay the trial and order the prosecution to provide you the information you requested. You don't want to waive your right to a speedy trial, but you may have to decide if it is worth getting your subpoena information. Its a pretty fair guess that the judge will not let the speedy trial clause slip by. Motion to Dismiss due to insufficient evidence. The time for employing this particular strategy is immediately after the prosecution rests his case. If the prosecution did not prove all of the required elements of the vehicle code you are charged with violating, then you may invoke this motion. That's why we suggest that you keep a check list of all relevant points that the prosecution needs to prove during the trial. It will be a handy reference chart when you explain to the judge that you were never identified as the driver, what road you were on, or any other relevant factors to the vehicle code. Motion to Dismiss due to incompetent witness. An extensive cross examination is necessary in order to prove that the prosecution's witness, mainly the police officer, does not have the recollection necessary to bring back the details of the day in question when you received your citation. If you can get him to state numerously that he does not recall, it is up to the judge in his infinite wisdom to decide whether or not the officer really remembers what happened on the day in question. Motion to Dismiss due to inadequate procedures. This may be utilized if the officer does not follow proper procedures, such as calibrating the radar unit before and after his shift instead of before and after the issuance of the citation. Use the case law to back up your claim of inadequate procedures. Motion to Dismiss due to insufficient evidence, specifically a missing officer. This is used in a case where you have two (2) police officers. One is manning the radar and the other is issuing the citation after the chase. Both officers must appear in court since one cannot testify for the other. This would also apply if the single officer not only monitored the radar, but was in pursuit at the same time. If he does not attend the trial or show up you may move to dismiss. You usually won't have to make a motion if a primary officer is missing. The prosecution will generally drop the case because he knows he has no case without the officer present. The layered defense. The strategies for beating a speeding ticket basically follows a layered defense. In a layered defense you will want one of the following to occur. The officer or officers do not appear. Your right to a speedy trial was denied, or you employed various motions to dismiss after the prosecution rested their case. After these strategies have been exhausted, it time to move to the defense presentation. The following will serve as an example of how to introduce evidence. Lets say that we are going to utilize the introduction of a diagram of the scene of the crime. The clerk of the court will mark the document with an indicator. Usually exhibit A, B, C etc. It will then be shown to the prosecution so that they have the opportunity to object to the presentation of the materials. You will have to identify the document as a diagram of the intersection of X & Y streets. At this point proceed to explain how this diagram will relate to your case. After you have done this, you must move that Exhibit A be introduced as evidence, otherwise, that document or any other document does not automatically become evidence. Once you have introduced all of your evidence, you have a decision to make. Are you going to testify on your own behalf or not. You do not have to testify and you are under no obligation to do so. If you do not testify, you deny the prosecution their right to interrogate you under oath. You also have to consider what you're going to testify to. If you know you were going 62 miles an hour in a 55 mph zone you certainly cannot testify that you were doing 55 mph in that zone because you would be committing perjury, and that' s another crime you don't want to be involved with. Regardless of what the crime is, you've admitted your guilt and you're now subject to another fine. Your only salvation when you take the stand in your own defense is that your testimony and your witness will outweigh the prosecutions case and cause them to lose. After you have testified and your evidence has been presented, if you elect to take the stand, you are ready to rest your case. Make sure that the exhibits that you wanted to be brought out into the trial as evidence, are taken into account by the court. Once all those items are introduced, you can rest your case. Bring up their mistakes because they have to prove that their case is correct. Stay strong in your presentation because the prosecution will get one more final word after you are done. Try to be brief in your presentation. If you take far too long, the judge and the jury will stop paying attention to you. State your case, sit down and wait for the verdict. If you find at the end of your trial, that you are found guilty anyway, it's time to begin your appeal. First of all, an appeal is a bit more complicated than a self represented client defending themselves in court. Hire an attorney. An attorney is going to want one thing out of you, and that's money. You're going to have to give him money up front, he's going to represent you during your case and when the trial is over, win or lose you' re going to have to pay more money. Court transcript will be necessary for the lawyer to go over to review all the facts of the case. When you do go in for your appeal make sure that there is a court reporter present in order to take a transcript of your trial. If there's none there, request one from the judge. He will provide a court reporter for you. If he does not, you already have your grounds for an appeal. RADAR UNITS Today most radar units are extremely accurate. There are some conditions that must be met however, and the conditions are as follows: The road must be flat and straight. There has to be good visibility, there needs to be a minimum of traffic and the officer has to be properly trained to interpret false signals generated by the equipment. Its very rare to find these four conditions existing at the same time. There are a lot of errors that can happen in routine traffic radar operations. How the system fails The national Bureau of Standards tested the six radar units most often used by police departments. All of them produced signals that were false from police radios or CD units. All of the units produced panning errors, when used either out or in of the police cars. There were shadowing errors that appeared on all the units when the police cars speed was added to the targeted vehicles speed. 24 models were tested by the International Association of Chief's of Police for five different manufacturers. Those results were even worse than that conducted by the National Bureau of Standards. In spite of the errors found, none of these units were dropped from use. Some of these units are still probably in operation around the country today. Radar errors can be a combination of many factors but are all linked to one of the following 13 types of errors found. 1. Panning - This happens when the hand held unit is swept across the dashboard of the car or the control unit mounted to the dash of the car. 2. Mechanical interference - the a/c or heating fan in the police car, alternator, ignition noises, rotating signs near the roadway, anything mechanical that is operating in the vicinity of the roadway can throw off the readings. 3. Shadowing - all moving radar units have this problem since the targeted speed is calculated by subtracting the speed of the police car from the closing speed of the target. 4. Batching - this error is caused when the police car is either slowing down or accelerating when the radar unit is still calculating the speed of the targeted vehicle. 5. Radio or Microwave interference - any outside source of a frequency transmission such as a CB radio, Ham or police radio, radar from a local airport, cell phones, power lines, neon or mercury vapor lights, power sub stations, etc., any one of these interference's can throw off the calculations of the radar unit. 6. Auto lock on wrong target - The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration suggest that you disable the auto lock on units that have this function and the newer units no longer have this capability. 7. No tracking history - this recommendation is most often ignored. It's one that is stressed in the operational manual and its impossible to avoid if you are using the unit in the "instant on" mode. The errors occurs when there are multiple targets in the path of the radar beam and the police officer has not observed the average speed reading nor has he checked for any external interference. 8. Harmonic Error from Phase Lock Loop - This problem is common with moving radar units when the police car is accelerating and the target vehicle is moving at a slow speed, typically under 20 mph and an error can occur in the reading. 9. Terrain error - One common factor in radar units is that they always read in a straight line. They cannot read around a turn or the other side of a hill. In this case, the radar unit may actually may be reading another vehicle farther up the road rather than the target vehicle that is going to be issued a citation. 10. Look past error - in this case the radar unit finds a larger vehicle between the patrol car and the targeted vehicle and locks on that one and gives an entirely different reading for an entirely different vehicle. 11. Multiple bounce error - These occur usually when there is an overpass in the vicinity of the chase and the radar beam is reflected off of multiple targets at the same time. The vehicle in question, an overpass, a sign, etc. will result in an improper reading. 12. Reflection error - If the antenna part of a radar unit is hung on the outside of the police officer's car , the beam can actually hit a side window or part of the window and a false reading results which will throw off the actual reading for the targeted vehicle. 13. Arm Swing Error - When the officer swings the unit up to point at the targeted vehicle, the speed of his arm is added to the speed of the vehicle and throws off the reading generated by the vehicle. In addition to these errors listed above, there are several ways that police officers can actually cheat on the reading. This has come about because some smaller communities have found that traffic tickets are an extremely effective way to raise money for their budget. These intentional errors may include the following: 1. Target one vehicle that is speeding and give out many speeding tickets to other people. 2. Whistle into the CB on the patrol car which will give out a high frequency pitch and will alter the speed that shows up on the radar unit. 3. Aim the unit at the ground and swing the unit up into the air. 4. Clock an airplane that's flying very low. 5. Set the car mounted unit to calibrate and the unit will register whatever the patrol car vehicle's speed is at the time. TYPICAL CROSS EXAMINATION QUESTIONS In the Cross Examination section it was pointed out that the most important factor to a successful cross exam is to concentrate on as many of the small details as possible. This section will take the questioning for the radar portion of a cross examination and take it apart so that it will be easier to follow. All of the questions may not apply to your particular case. Just use these questions as an outline for your own particular direction and not as a script for use in the courtroom. You will also need to analyze the judge's feelings as far as your line of questioning. Since you are defending yourself, you will not likely be granted as much freedom during the cross examination. Maintain a steady and rational pace and you should keep the judge satisfied. The following line of questioning has been derived from the "Attorney's Deposition Guide" which is available from the National Motorists Association. Introductory Questions: These questions are formulated to establish the relevant facts in the case and to create a friendly atmosphere with the ticketing officer. 1. What specific type of radar were you using when the ticket was issued? Do not accept an answer like "Doppler Radar" or "Moving Radar" 2. Would you please tell the facts of the ticket as you remember them? Remember your grounds for objections concerning the officer reading directly from the citation. 3. Was your audio Doppler working at the time the citation was issued? If the officer claims he doesn't know what audio Doppler is, remember this response when you get to the question section on audio Doppler. 4. What speed was your audio warning set on? If the officer claims he doesn't know what audio warning is, remember this response when you get to the question section on audio alarm. 5. Was your automatic speed lock working? A crucial response. If yes, you have started building your case for operational error. If no, don 't worry, there's a lot more opportunities. 6. Were you using a manual on-off switch or other radar detector defeating mechanism in association with your radar unit? 7. Were you stationary or moving when your radar unit's alert went off? 8. Was the target vehicle coming towards you or moving away from you? 9. Did you see the target vehicle preceding the time your radar unit's audio alarm went off? Another crucial answer. You have essentially asked the officer if he took a traffic history before issuing the citation. If he indicates that he did see you, ask the next three questions. If he did not see you, stop your preliminary questions here. 10. Were you able to determine the target vehicle's speed from a visual observation? 11. What was the apparent speed of the target vehicle? 12. About how many seconds elapsed between the time you first observed the target vehicle and the time your audio alarm went off? Establish the officer's qualifications: These questions are directed towards the officer's training on the operation of the radar unit. Keep in mind the national standard of 24 hours of classroom time followed by 16 hours of field training. 1. How many years have you been a police officer? This is just a set up for questions to follow. 2. How long have you operated radar units? Again, a set up question. 3. Have you received formal instruction and training in the operation of radar? If he says no, contain your smile with your best poker face! 4. Under what circumstances did you receive your training? This will likely have a variety of responses. A home run for you would be training received from his own department by another officer. 5. How many hours of classroom instruction did you receive? A crucial response. No officer generally has 14 hours of classroom. Remember Kentucky v. Honeycutt is going to be used by the prosecution to justify the officer having less than the 24 hours. If the officer has less than three or four hours he is likely not qualified. This will become painfully obvious to the officer as you continue you line of questioning. 6. How long ago did you receive this training? If it was several years ago it could indicate that he is not current in the proper operation of the specific unit. It could also indicate that he was trained on a different unit than was used for the citation. 7. How many officers took this training with you? If it was an extremely large class, try to downgrade his level of training by asking additional questions such as: Was the training a lecture? Were you seated auditorium style? Where were you seated? Did you have any other classes that day? Were questions allowed? Did you ask any questions? If the officer can 't recall the particulars of his radar training class, ask how can he remember the subject taught? 8. Who taught this classroom portion of the radar course? If it was another officer, question that officer's training credentials and ask for the trainer's certification. If it was the manufacturer, you have a potentially biased source of training. 9. Since your initial training, have you had any additional radar course work? He likely has not. If he has, find out the circumstances just the same as you questioned for the initial classroom training. 10. How many hours of one-on-one field training with a professional instructor have you had in the operation of radar units? If he rode along with another officer, again ask for that officer's training credentials. If it was a factory representative, it was likely for thirty minutes or less with multiple officers in the car at the time. Keep pressing for an accurate answer. 11. Do you believe yourself to be a competent radar operator? What else can he say except yes? 12. Do you hold a certification in the use of radar? Not likely but doesn't matter either way. 13. When was your initial training in the use of the (fill in the actual unit used)? If he hasn't received specific training in the actual unit, remember your need for a poker face. 14. Did your training include the use of other radar units? The goal is to subdivide his training and show that he has had little or no training in the specific radar used in our case. Establish the officer's trust in the radar unit: This is a faith check for the officer. He likely isn't aware that you know some of the downfalls of the particular unit involved in your case. 1. Do you believe the (fill in actual unit used) to be a good radar unit? What do you think the answer will be? 2. Have you ever encountered any problems with the unit? Not likely, but if so, get the specifics. 3. Are you permanently assigned to one specific radar unit? Again, not likely since most departments move units around. 4. Do you believe that there are individual differences among radar units of the same model? Will one unit have an idiosyncrasy that another might not have? Likely answer is they all work alike. If he has noticed differences, get the specifics. 5. Do you believe the (actual unit used) gives deceptive or false readings? This is a crucial question. If he says no, you can likely catch him with the manufacturer's documentation (remember your subpoena). He will likely reply that he has never seen any false readings. If so, skip the next question. 6. About what percent of the time does your radar unit give these false readings? Make a note of the percentage. 7. Do you believe that you can always tell when the unit is giving a false reading? He will likely say that he can always tell, which sets up your upcoming reasonable doubt argument later in your presentation. 8. Is there a special number or symbol that appears on the readout to indicate a false reading? Of course not. 9. Does the unit give some visual indication that the reading is questionable? No it doesn't. 10. How, then, can you tell that the reading you are getting is false? He will likely say that there is no target in sight or the target is clearly not speeding. If he says that false readings only occur when there is no target present, then that is essentially saying that the unit never gives false readings. If he says that he can always tell that the target vehicle isn't doing the speed indicated, finish this section with the remaining series of questions. 11. Since there are no special indications of a false reading, does that mean that all 82 mph readings aren't false? Of course not. 12. So the false reading could be 20 mph or 70 mph? It certainly can be. If he says anything other than yes he is either trying to evade the questions or technologically incompetent. 13. The radar could give a reading of say 70 mph, but you could clearly see, for example, that the target vehicle was only going 30 mph? He should agree with this question. 14. What if the speed limit is 55 mph, and the same 70 mph false reading shows up. Is that possible? He should say that this could happen. You should use the speed limit of your particular case in all questions. 15. Presuming the car approaching you was going 55 mph, could you recognize that the radar was malfunctioning? If he says yes, press on with the remaining questions. If he says no then end this section with this question. 16. If an approaching car is traveling at 55 mph and the radar gives a false reading of 56, could you recognize that? Not on his best day. 17. If an approaching car is traveling at 55 mph and the radar gives a false reading of 57, could you recognize that? Keep going until he commits to a specific speed he could recognize or until it becomes obvious that he actually can't recognize the actual speed. If he commits to a speed within the range of your citation, you have established reasonable doubt. Audio Doppler, audio alarm and automatic speed lock: These are special features that most radar units incorporate to make the officer's job a little easier. Audio Doppler is on every radar unit except the Speedgun Series. If audio Doppler is used, it will aid the officer in confirming that the target vehicle is speeding. The common problem is that the audio Doppler can be turned down or completely off, thereby contributing zero to the unit's reliability. The audio alarm is a preset speed that the radar unit will sound the alarm to let the officer know he has a fish on his line. The only way to disenable the alarm is to dial in a very high setting such as 99 mph. The automatic speed lock is the worst feature of any radar unit. Once the unit reads a specific speed the unit then locks that speed in on the display. The officer then has no way of knowing if the reading is false or a momentary reading. This section should establish the officer's normal operating methods. 1. Does your radar unit have an audio Doppler? That is, a continuous audio signal tone that converts the radar unit's Doppler shift into an audible tone? This answer should be yes unless the radar unit is a Speedgun. If it is a Speedgun, skip to question 13. 2. Does the audio Doppler have a volume control? It does. 3. Do you ever use your audio Doppler? If no, ask the question one more time and skip to question 13. If he says yes, press on. 4. About what percent of the time do you use the audio Doppler? Make a note and subtract from 100 % for question 10. 5. When you operate your radar unit with the audio Doppler on, do you operate at full volume? Unless he can't hear at all, he should say no. 6. At what volume do you normally operate the audio Doppler? This is important if it is a very low setting. 7. Do you ever turn it off? Unless he answered question 4 with none, he will likely say yes. 8. Why do you turn it off? It is extremely annoying, any other answer is a cover up. 9. Does the audio Doppler ever interfere with your use of the police radio or conversation with other officers? Of course it does. 10. So you operate your radar unit with the audio Doppler turned off about (fill in the number from question 4) percent of the time. 11. During the remaining time, how often do you operate the radar unit with the volume on soft? Note this percent amount. 12. Do you consider the audio Doppler a valuable tool to prevent operator errors? This is important if he replies "no" and it ends up that he didn't use it during your citation. 13. Is your radar unit equipped with a dial which will allow you to select a speed above which an audio alarm will sound if a violation speed is detected? All radar units have this feature. 14. Let's refer to that feature as an audio alarm. Do you commonly use this feature of the radar unit? He has to unless he sets it so high as to never work. 15. About what percent of the time do you use the audio alarm? If he doesn't say 100%, then ask him how he disengages the alarm. 16. If the speed limit is 55 mph, what speed do you normally dial in as the pre-set violation speed? Note the speed, but this answer isn't crucial. 17. Do you find the audio alarm to be beneficial? He will likely say that it is sometimes useful. 18. If a violation speed causes the alarm to sound, you only need to flip a switch to lock in that speed on the radar unit? That's how the unit operates. 19. Does the radar unit also have a mode which will allow the unit to automatically lock in the violation speed? Yes, it does. 20. Do you ever use the automatic speed lock function? If he says "no': ask the question again and emphasize the word "ever" while giving the officer a skeptical look. If he still says no, end this question section here. If he says yes, press on. 21. About what percent of the time do you use the automatic speed lock function? Note the amount. 22. Do you find the automatic speed lock convenient? Of course it is. 23. Do you use the automatic speed lock for any other reasons? This should be interesting. 24. Was the use of the automatic speed lock included in your training? This answer doesn't really matter. Determining if the officer uses a visual backup: The typical officer has a standard pattern of testimony. This pattern normally indicates that the officer observed the defendant's vehicle doing approximately X mph and he then used the radar unit as a backup to his visual estimation of the speed. This is pure fantasy since the maximum distance a highly trained officer can make a visual identification from is approximately 500 feet. The radar unit can make the same identification for up to 5,000 feet. As a result, the audio alarm will sound before the officer can make the visual identification. This section is designed to verify this fact and try to get the officer to make a statement that will come back to haunt him later in your presentation. 1. Are you familiar with the term "traffic history?" I want to verify that this term refers to the continuous observation of the traffic by an officer. 2. With regard to speeding tickets, it is normal for an officer to observe the traffic patterns for several seconds - usually three to five - before he sees what he believes to be a speeding violation. In other words, three to five seconds before the radar unit sounds the audio alarm. Do you agree with this assessment? He will have to in order to keep up the fantasy of the radar for backup. 3. With this definition in mind, have you EVER taken a traffic history prior to issuing a speeding citation? He should say yes. If he says no, refer to the answer to question 5. 4. What percentage of the time would you say that you take a traffic history? This number will likely be very high. 5. Do you feel that it is important to take a traffic history in speeding cases? He will likely say yes. If he says no, then you have a valid argument that he was relying solely on the radar unit. 6. At what approximate distance can you determine the exact speed of a target vehicle? Most officers will say about 500 feet. If he doesn't give you a real answer, set up a specific scenario, such as, in the median of a level and straight, uncrowded highway. If he still doesn't answer suggest the 500 foot figure. If he doesn't accept 500 feet, adjust the number until he agrees to a specific distance. 7. When you take a traffic history and make the visual estimate of speed, do you do so before the radar unit sounds the audio alarm? This is a very crucial question. If he says yes, he's had it since the radar unit has a range of at least 1000 feet. Proceed with questions 8 and 9. If he says no, then he hasn't taken a traffic history. Finish all the rest of the questions in this section. 8. What is the approximate range of your radar unit? He will likely say he doesn't know. Toss him a high figure in the range of 3,000 to 5,000 feet. If he still doesn't know ask if he would be surprised to know that the radar unit has a range of at least 3,000 feet. if he says yes he would be surprised, you just caught him in a crucial technical question. 9. Despite knowing this range you still contend that the radar unit does not sound the audio alarm before you are able to identify the speed of a vehicle? The real escape for him is the answer "no". He won't say that, he will most likely say sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. 10. If the radar unit sounds the audio alarm before you have determined that the target vehicle is speeding, how can you say that you have taken a traffic history? He will have to say that the alarm alerts him to the presence of a potential speeder. 11. Do you look at the radar unit to see what the reading is? He will likely say that he looks. if he denies looking he has to admit that he knows the vehicle is going at least as fast as the audio alarm setting. 12. Does the fact that the audio alarm has sounded influence your judgment as you make your visual estimate of speed? In other words, are you more likely to agree that a target vehicle is traveling a certain speed since the audio alarm has already acknowledged this fact? He should agree. If he doesn't ask him why he doesn't just run the audio alarm setting up so high that it will never go off? Determining knowledge of beam width and range: Remember that Kentucky v Honeycutt will be used to show that the officer does not need to be an expert in the field of radar. You are trying to demonstrate to the court that the officer lacks certain basic knowledge that he should have. 1. Do you know what the normal range of your radar unit is? Get him to give you a figure of some sort. Then give the manufacturer's data if you have it. If not it will likely be at least 3,000 feet. 2. At a distance of 1,000 feet, how wide is the radar beam? Again, try to pin him down to a figure of some kind. Figure a traffic lane to be 12 feet. In reality, a 12 degree beam will measure 287 feet at a distance of 1,000 feet while a 24 degree beam will measure 574 feet. 3. How far away from the unit will the beam travel before it covers one lane? Again, get a figure. The true amount is about 50 feet but most officers will guess around 500 feet. 4. With what degree of confidence can you aim your antenna at a specific lane of traffic at a distance of 500 feet. The answer is no confidence at all. 5. In the stationary mode, you can operate to record traffic going away from you or coming towards you, is that correct? This is correct. 6. Can the radar unit distinguish between traffic directions? It will pick up traffic in either direction. 7. In the moving mode, can the radar unit pick up traffic in both directions? The Speedgun 8 unit can, most all others can only pick up traffic coming towards the radar unit. 8. What types of things will stop the radar beam? For example, will the radar read through bushes and tall grass? Radar can pass through light brush 9. Can you get the speed of a vehicle around a curve or over a hill? Not even possible. Remember, the beam travels in a straight line. 10. Will the beam bounce off a metal building or sign? Certainly. 11. If the beam bounces off something could it pick up the speed of another vehicle at an angle to the radar unit?. Absolutely. 12. Can a high-voltage power line interfere with the radar beam? Again, absolutely. 13. What about neon signs or street lights, can they cause interference? Notice a pattern here? Final questions: These are designed to apply the specifics of your case against the answers the officer gave for the typical operation of the unit. 1. Could you again recall the facts of this particular citation? 2. Was your audio Doppler on at the time and if so how loud? 3. What speed was the audio alarm set for? Did you make any adjustments to it during your shift? 4. Was the radar unit's automatic speed lock engaged? 5. Were you using a manual on-off switch? 6. Were you in a stationary or moving mode at the time? 7. Was the defendant approaching you or traveling away from you? 8. Did you see any other traffic around the defendant's vehicle? If so, what types and where were they located? 9. Was there any traffic moving in the same direction as you? 10. Did you see the defendant before your audio alarm sounded? 11. Did you determine an estimated speed of the defendant's vehicle based on your visual ident- ification? If so what was your point of reference? 12. How many seconds passed between the time you first saw the defendant and the time your audio alarm sounded? 13. Were there any power lines in the area? Any cars or trucks with CB radio antennas? Were you using your police radio at the time? Was your police car's engine running at the time? 14. As for the calibration of the radar unit, at what times before and after you wrote the defendant's citation did you use the radar unit's internal calibration function? 15. At what times before and after you wrote the defendant's citation did you use an external tuning fork for calibration? 16. In your opinion, what is the difference between the internal calibration and the tuning fork calibration methods? 17. Do you feel that one calibration method is more accurate than the other? Questions 14 through 17 are critical to establish the calibration procedure followed by the officer. Remember that case law has shown that the officer should calibrate, with tuning forks, prior to and immediately after writing a citation. |
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Dane,
Thanks for the detail info. At the time, I was alone (i.e. no witness), how much is this gonna hurt? Also, how do I know if the officer used any radar unit? What would the defense be if, say, he used pacing instead? Would photos be something usable (problem is how to link speed limit signs with street name or location, as they don't normally show up close together). Raymond |
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