Traffic Court 101?

I've requested a trial by jury to fight a traffic ticket in Texas. I've requested a trial by jury.

Any do's or don'ts I should be aware of?

Unless you have a lawyer- you just lost your case

But i suspect you will represent yourself.
The judge will not allow any latitude- you will be expected to be as knowledgeable as a lawyer. The prosecution will be able to rune circles around you

Far better to have trial by judge- I suspect great latitude will be given then

See if you can go to 'traffic school' then the ticket does not appear on your record

I was on a traffic Jury once, After five minutes of this clown ,if it was the "Gong Show" the gong would get hit

BTW we voted guilty with maximum fine

If it was a moving violation good luck you stand about a 5% chance .

With you not providing any more info than what you did its hard to even speculate .

Look up stuff like a proff witness would . say if you were a engineer with the high way dept .Did the road you were cited on even meet code for fed funds was the curb height correct ? Was it marked correctly ? Are the signs posted at the correct places? Is there any deveation in the paving ? the under laying issue has to be not what you did but what they allowed to happen .

What ever you do dont i repeat DONT use any of the info i typed above unless you want to for sure loose your case .

Glad i could be of help

Can you provide us with more information on what happened?

I got a ticket in Fort Worth. Immediately following the ticket I got all sorts of postcards in the mail from lawyers saying they could dismiss the ticket. Sent $75 to one of them (that is 75, don't add a hooker hundred) and 18 months later I got a letter saying the ticket was dismissed.

I can't remember the law firm's name but send me a PM and I will look it up when I am back in the office . The only problem is you only have like 14 days to protest. I was lucky and got my protest in on the very last day. Otherwise, I think, it defaults that you have to pay.

This happened in April of 2013.

My advice is to bring lots of lube and spread your butt-cheeks yourself to make it less painful when the prosecutor ass-fucks you in front of the jury. Try not to squeal like a sissy-boy.

^ Well dammit that is the funniest thing I've read in a good while! Made me spit up my drink.

- Failure to stop exiting driveway, bldg onto a public road.

Cops were sitting behind 4 cars - view was obscured. One of the cars pulls out as I exit business parking lot. Qtr mile down the road, popo lights me up. First cop says I failed to yield - not even close. 2nd cop writes ticket for failure to stop. Cites me for driving without valid license due to DPS mistake (got that one dismissed). He added a dose of 'how to not interact with the public' for good measure. City block where "event" occurred isn't even correct on the ticket.

Court date has been reset 2x (1 x by prosecutor; 1x by me). I was tempted to 'ride the lightning' for the experience but Shyster has me giving it a 2nd thought. Me thinks I will seek the services someone better versed in the matter that a crafty lawyer I play poker with told me about a few months back.

Even if you are right you are still ;dead meat if you represent your self
'Dead meat'; nah shredded meat, you will be fed to a meat shredder

Read again Shyster John!

This does sound as if it qualify for traffic school

I took two traffic school classes, kept those two tickets off my record

BTW Texas Juries like to convict, it is not like you are in Minnesota and might get a 'bleeding heart' jury

In Texas, if the driver is 25 years of age or older, they don't have to take a driving safety course to get a deferred probation. Talk to the prosecutor, haggle on the fine, and do a short (30-60 day) deferred probation. This ain't a case suitable for Clarence Darrow, amigos.

I can't believe a judge would grant a jury trial for a traffic case. Is that normal to get that granted? In any case good luck.

I can't believe a judge would grant a jury trial for a traffic case. Is that normal to get that granted? In any case good luck. Originally Posted by Stockinglover

Yes.

I'm not a laywer but I was able to get a traffic ticket dismissed a few years ago by handling my own case.

The cop did not show up for the first court date so I asked for dismissal but judge refused (not surprising) and rescheduled for a month later. The assistant DA tried to get me to agree to traffic school and a $200 fee, I told her "No thanks, see you in court in a month." She laughed and looked at me like I was a fucking lunatic.

I bought a book on handling your own traffic ticket case and read up on some cases and the applicable laws. From that, I was able to write up and serve document requests on the assistant DA handling the case but she never responded which told me my gut feeling of fighting the bogus ticket was right.

At the second court date she expected me to not show up but I did. I wish I could have taken a picture of the stupid surprised look on her face when I said "Hi" to her. When my case was called she asked the judge to dismiss it even though the cop was there.

It did take some time and effort but the lesson I learned was that this whole traffic ticket scam has very little to nothing to do with traffic safety and everything to do as a revenue source so if you make them work by having to respond to your document request, the cost and effort of doing so is more than they are willing to do so they dismiss your case.

After all, they are no better than school yard bullies that always prey on easy victims that don't even attempt to fight back, that way the revenues/profits are kept high because those types of cases incur minimal costs compared to cases like mine.

^ Well dammit that is the funniest thing I've read in a good while! Made me spit up my drink.

- Failure to stop exiting driveway, bldg onto a public road.

Cops were sitting behind 4 cars - view was obscured. One of the cars pulls out as I exit business parking lot. Qtr mile down the road, popo lights me up. First cop says I failed to yield - not even close. 2nd cop writes ticket for failure to stop. Cites me for driving without valid license due to DPS mistake (got that one dismissed). He added a dose of 'how to not interact with the public' for good measure. City block where "event" occurred isn't even correct on the ticket.

Court date has been reset 2x (1 x by prosecutor; 1x by me). I was tempted to 'ride the lightning' for the experience but Shyster has me giving it a 2nd thought. Me thinks I will seek the services someone better versed in the matter that a crafty lawyer I play poker with told me about a few months back. Originally Posted by Yoyoma

Did you are have you ever driven on the block that is stated in the complaint [event] before the citation ?

If yes your guilty

If no a judge would probably have a 50/50 split depending on who wrote the complaint .

A jury is going to be pissed you brought them to court for jury duty for something so petty and find you guilty as hell !!

The Eternal Bachelor: I'm glad the judge dismissed your ticket, but I think you're jumping to a conclusion thinking it was because the city prosecutor (she wasn't a DA) was too lazy to respond to your document request. She could have asked for a dismissal for a plethora of reasons. And responding to a document request in a run-of-the-mill traffic ticket case is easy because there are hardly any documents.

The Eternal Bachelor: I'm glad the judge dismissed your ticket, but I think you're jumping to a conclusion thinking it was because the city prosecutor (she wasn't a DA) was too lazy to respond to your document request. She could have asked for a dismissal for a plethora of reasons. And responding to a document request in a run-of-the-mill traffic ticket case is easy because there are hardly any documents. Originally Posted by ShysterJon

ShysterJon, you are correct. I don't know what the actual reason was for the dismissal but I had good reason to think that.

Before and after my court dates, I sat in court to watch other cases to get a feel for the process and to learn what to do and not to do. In every case that actually went to trial before a jury, every defendant lost. Every case was their testimony against the cop's testimony. They did not enter any documents (I'm assuming they never requested any relevent documents) to the court that might have helped their cases.

In contrast, I had requested quite a few documents (don't remember how many, it's been years). For example, from my research I learned that many traffic cops do not calibrate their radar/laser guns each day nor keep calibration records as required. Also, many police departments do not maintain their radar/laser guns as required nor keep maintenance records. If the prosecutor can't or won't produce those documents, the court and the jury will have enough reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the radar reading and vote not guilty.

I knew the traffic fine and the increase in insurance rates I would have had to pay out would be far more than the cost I put in fighting it so it was an easy decision for me to fight the ticket.