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I washed 1362 and pulled onto the hy at my shop. This time I was NOT doing doughnuts, but just accelerated a little. 400 feet from my driveway the state Trooper said he clocked me at 64 in a 45. I pointed to the water dripping off my car, and my driveway entrance. The asshole wrote the ticket for 54 in a 45 making it less than 10 over the limit. I took my Google map to court and plead my case and lost. Thinking back, I had the oppertunity to ask him questions under oath. They should have been "Since radar was invented in the 40's has it ever been wrong?" he would have to say YES. Then "have you ever been wrong?" he would have to say YES again. I truly believe he clocked my campy clones from the angle where he was and got a bad read. He claimed he could tell the speed of a vehicle within 3 mph just by looking at it. He called in the stop as a Lambo. Next time I going to say, "you can tell the speed, but you don't know what kind of car it is.. Frikin' amazing skill.. Only a few things make me mad. Blaming me for something I did not do is on top of list.
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"Dead reckoning" is a catch all for the fuzz. They claim to have this training for just such an instance or if there is no gun recall or if they just hear your four barrel kick in while they are enjoying a doughnut. In which case you request training transcripts for both his dead reckoning and operation of the gun, calibration of the gun, failure rate or percentage of error of the gun from the manufacturer and hope that there is a documented delinquency. Hopefully they will throw it out rather than spend all those man labor hours producing the documents on a $300 fine, or you can hope to find the recommended training/calibration intervals have expired. However, if this strategy fails you run the risk of a hefty court cost added to your ticket. You can get lucky as my neighbor did, the copper wrote the wrong date on the ticket, "BAM Dismissed"...
The argument that a Police officer uses in court is that he has been trained to recognize a person who is exceeding the speed limit.

Your question as the Defendant has to be, that you object because the Officer has not show any documentation that he 1) has been trained 2) the training is 100% accurate and irrefutable 3) he has been calibrated periodically just like the mechanical equipment he uses is required to be.

You must ask that the case be dismissed because without that documentation by the Officer, this is heresy evidence.

A person, any person has no special dispensation that allows them to accurately measure a vehicles velocity merely by judgement.

It is not in the Statutes, and acceptance of technical evidence by the Court must be corroborated.

You can save yourself a lot of time, effort and money in the whole thing because there isn't one Court in the United States that will NOT accept an Officers testimony as Gospel without any other support.

You can of course appeal this and theoretically wind up in the Supreme Court in three to five years...maybe.

They might want to hear the case if you present it as outlined above, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Best thing to do is to plead not guilty, appear at your appointed time and see what the Prosecutor is offering that day. It is usually kicked down to a lesser charge if you plead guilty which is the smarter thing to do in the long run.

If you take it to trial you will also likely get the maximum fine for the offense, just to add insult to injury.

The only case I saw get withdrawn was a bicyclist who was charged with failure to yield to a flashing yellow light.

The Prosecutor must like bicyclists? Some of the ones I've seen should go to jail...but I digress.

Oh. I was told by a "friend" who was a traffic control officer, that the only excuse that works is to tell him/her, that "you just got a phone call". Now whatever you do, don't say it was on your cell phone because they might want to "look at" your incoming calls to verify this.

The story is that you are rushing to the hospital emergency room and if they are a human being, which knowing many cops is doubtful to begin with, pick a hospital that is close, because the officer might offer to give you and escort there? Wink
All using a lawyer does is cost you $500 for their time on top of what you can already do for yourself.

It is procedure here that if you show up to plead guilty, the Prosecutor will offer kicking it down one charge.

I just went through this. It was 82 in a 65. That would have been three points.

It got kicked down to failure to yield to a flashing light, which was 2 points and $140 fine.

If I decided to go to trial, it would have been guilty to the greater charge plus $500 which was the maximum fine.

If you use an attorney, put another $500 on top, and they would have gotten the same deal for showing up.

The kid in front of me who was 16, got 109 in a 65 kicked down to a 74 in a 65 and $140, which was the number of the day...and he got a lecture from the Judge.
Well at least you went to court, that is the first step. When I got some bogus ticket for unsafe lane change, I went in because a lot of times the gumshoe don't show up and you win because they did not show. The day I went in, about 3/4 of those with tickets, gumshoe didn't show and so they went free with no ticket. But of course my guy was there, and made up some stuff, so I lost. However, when you go to court you forfit your ability to then attend traffic school and have the ticket go away on your record. I was not aware of that, as nowhere did it say that. I even asked the judge that I obviousely could use traffic school to learn from what I apparently did and he said you had your chance for traffic school. So if you have your choice of traffic school or to contest the ticket in court, you have to think about it, kind of like Vegas take your chance or not, roll the dice.
I pleaded not guilty because the cop wrote me up for 1 mile over the legal allowance to go to traffic school and I had nothing to loose. I pre-paid the fine so that I could move the court date to my choice. I moved it to the Friday before a major holiday and the cop did not appear so I won. It took about 3 months to get my money back but what a great feeling to win.
In much of Canada (not sure about Quebec, sorry David) you can request a copy of all evidence related to the case (copies of the front and BACK of the Officer's copy of the ticket and any other notes the officer made at the time to which he may refer at trial) and, if it isn't provided to you in advance of your court date (I understand it is rarely sent), you show up and request the charge be dismissed - typically it isn't, but they'll reschedule the court date and order that you be sent the materials. At the second court date one of 2 things will usually happen, a) the officer doesn't show up the second time because it isn't one of his/her scheduled court dates (so it's thrown out), or b) they still haven't sent you the 'discovery' materials and in this case you request it be dismissed on the grounds that your right to a prompt trial has been infringed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (and it's thrown out) ... even if it is sent, you can still take a shot at arguing your right to a prompt trial has been infringed if it's been more than some number of months (I'm not sure if the precedent is 12 or 18 months) before they get you back in court.
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In much of Canada (not sure about Quebec, sorry David) you can request a copy of all evidence related to the case (copies of the front and BACK of the Officer's copy of the ticket and any other notes the officer made at the time to which he may refer at trial) and, if it isn't provided to you in advance of your court date (I understand it is rarely sent), you show up and request the charge be dismissed - typically it isn't, but they'll reschedule the court date and order that you be sent the materials. At the second court date one of 2 things will usually happen, a) the officer doesn't show up the second time because it isn't one of his/her scheduled court dates (so it's thrown out), or b) they still haven't sent you the 'discovery' materials and in this case you request it be dismissed on the grounds that your right to a prompt trial has been infringed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (and it's thrown out) ... even if it is sent, you can still take a shot at arguing your right to a prompt trial has been infringed if it's been more than some number of months (I'm not sure if the precedent is 12 or 18 months) before they get you back in court.



Cool idea Russ. I have asked my "defenders" to investigate its relevance in Quebec. Thanks!
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i don't see any reason why they would not produce this easily?


You'd think it would be easy but, whether it's bureaucracy, inertia, or economics, if you send the request there seems to be a disconnect and a response isn't always sent (I forgot to mention earlier that you should also be asking for information on the measuring device used - make/model and records of the date, time and frequency of it's calibration ... if you get the information, then you do a little homework on the device to find out the manufacturer's recommendations on calibration frequency and see if there's any issues with its reliability).
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