VIII. STRATEGIES TO FIGHT YOUR TICKET
Check out these sites...they provide very good information:
National Motorist Association
The Ticket Assasin
Seriously; follow those links. They do a better job explaining
how to thoroughly attack your ticket with sound arguments than I can
regurgitating the same basic information. The Ticket Assasin is
donationware. He can help you with your trial by declaration.
There is one other site I'd like to quickly mention:
The Tipmra.
Their primary strategy of defeating traffic tickets is to make the
evidence inadmissible or insufficient through case law or lack of
records, much as what I tried to do in my speeding case described
previously. Be forewarned, even the Tipmra won't always work for you if
you are facing an ignorant traffic court judge. If you have the time
(you definitely should if you want to have the greatest chance for
winning), go through the site and explore what he has to say. You'll
have to purchase the Tipmra to use it, however. If you lose your
declaration? Try it and have at it. Read over his information. Together
with
Fight Your Ticket in California (Brown), you will have digested more material than what 95% of lawyers know about traffic law.
The author of the Tipmra really goes out of his way to denigrate the
other web sites. Most of the other web sites are really full of it
(about as much as the advice given on message boards). They make empty
promises, rely on divine intervention factors, and often give really
absurd pointers on what to do at traffic stops. However, some of the
things he recommends against (photos, discovery, researching vehicle
codes, etc.) do not hurt to try in my opinion, but ONLY if you believe
it helps the case.
Here is an example of where it helps to understand the vehicle code you're being charged with:
Example: You were stopped for not stopping at a sign "long enough."
Most cops will tell you 3-5 seconds. However, NOWHERE in the vehicle
code does it say that you must do this. The required length of time for
a stop is defined in CVC 587 Stop or Stopping: "Stop or stopping...
shall mean any cessation of movement of a vehicle." Use the verbatim
wording of the vehicle code to your advantage. You could also argue
that since many drivers do not stop at all at an uncontested
intersection, the officer also assumed that you also did not stop. It
will be up to you to draft your complete argument. ;)
At this point I would like to reiterate something I warned earlier. I
make no guarantees with this information, and while I may be seen as
another site that "promises" strategies that I don't specifically tell
you how to do, I have my reasons for not fully elaborating. First, I
give you direct links to the sites that will aid in working your way
through your case. Those guys know a lot more than I do and can do a
much better job of helping you formulate your strategies. This is not
my day job and I cannot offer advice for a specific situation. There is
no "one size fits all" strategy. You may even end up in a kangaroo
court where nothing I advised will work (especially if you have judges
that will ignore records and irrefutable, mathematically provable
evidence). Or you may have to change your line of questioning on the
fly (you most likely will). Second, people don't bother to think. They
want a quick-fix band-aid for their traffic ticket, writing sloppy
declarations and accidentally incriminating themselves in the process,
or freezing up when an officer testified to something they weren't
ready to confront with good questioning. Hence, I would like to keep
some of my "aces" to myself instead of having them easily exploited by
the ignorant. I hope you understand.
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