How to Fight a Speeding Ticket
Monday, July 02, 2012
You should keep in mind that the roadside is not the place to argue your way out of a ticket. That’s a little like arguing with your barber in the middle of a haircut. The citing officer is there to do a job that even the most articulate amongst us cannot stop them from doing. The best thing you can do is be polite, courteous, and make contact with an attorney at your earliest convenience to discuss the process and any possible defenses you may have.
To be clear, challenging a speeding ticket or any traffic violation in the Commonwealth is a definitely a process, and the first step is to request a hearing. You accomplish this by flipping over your citation, following the directions on the back by checking off the second box indicating your desire a hearing, and mailing it off to the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
Then you wait.
After a period of time, you will receive a notice in the mail indicating that the Registry has received your request. That notice will explain that you must send in a fee, and that upon receipt of those monies, you will get a hearing date. So you send the money and you wait. The next notice in the mail you should receive is the notice of hearing. That hearing will be held in whatever District Court has jurisdiction over the town where you were cited and will give you a time to be there. You should definitely be at the court a little early.
The initial hearing is held before a clerk magistrate or an assistant clerk magistrate and is a somewhat formal process. A representative from the citing department will be there and will give a brief summary of what allegedly happened on the day in question. You will also have the opportunity to give your side of the story either through your own words or through the representations of your attorney. And then a decision gets made. If the outcome of the hearing isn't quite what you wanted, you have the option of appealing that decision to the judge by paying an additional fifty dollars. Unlike the clerk's hearing, the officer who actually issued the citation must be present at this appeal.
Despite what some people may believe, there is no magic formula for getting out of a traffic ticket. That being said, both the clerk's hearing and the judge appeal follow set procedures. First, at some point in both hearings there will be a chance to ask the officer some questions. The point of these questions is to elicit information from the witness that proves your case. I promise you that yelling or becoming accusatory does not help. Think about it: if your defense is that the officer acted in good faith but was mistaken, trying to convince the world that they are villains just for pulling you over doesn't prove your point. That’s their job, remember?
The Second step is an opportunity to present evidence. This can be as simple as you testifying to your side of the story or as complex as introducing photographs or even maps. What evidence you choose to introduce depends on what your defense is. What that defense is cannot possibly be part of this article and is the type of advice that can only be given by a professional after a review of your specific facts.
The final step to keep in mind is the closing argument. I cannot stress enough that these should be mapped out before starting to talk. Proper prior planning helps any advocate tie together evidence supporting your position and highlight evidence tending to disprove the allegation against you. Just like a professional will be able to tell you what your best evidence and defenses are, an attorney will also be able to tell you what the right things to say during the closing argument are.
Now if you notice, nothing in this article lays out winning arguments or sure fire tricks for how to beat a ticket. The reality is that every case is different and, if you have a valid defense, there are attorneys qualified to help you present. Finding the right lawyer to help you can make a big difference. Of course, whether you get yourself counsel or not, the one thing you can't afford to do is ignore a ticket after you get it. That’s only guaranteed to lead to more trouble.
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