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From: davidl@tekig5.UUCP (David Levadie)
Newsgroups: net.auto,net.politics
Subject: Air bears, fighting tickets... etc..
Message-ID: <65@tekig5.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Apr-85 17:09:00 EST
Article-I.D.: tekig5.65
Posted: Thu Apr 11 17:09:00 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Apr-85 05:49:58 EST
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
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Xref: watmath net.auto:6377 net.politics:8494

My conviction is that it is a moral obligation and a social responsibility
to fight traffic tickets with all the resources at one's disposal, since
traffic law enforcement is basically chickenshit legalized highway robbery
and allows cops to prey on people with burned-out taillights instead
of chasing burglars and rapists who, of course, might (shudder,quake)
fight BACK.

Practially nobody sees it that way, though.  In general, no one will
spend a few hours of their time, much less lawyer fees if necessary (which
it often isn't) to fight a $30 ticket, unless their license is at stake.
The necessity and obligation to obstruct and confound a twisted, warped
system of legalities just isn't an issue with most people.

*but* just consider what would happen if EVERYBODY who got a ticket started
doing it at ONCE... who was it that said, "Even though what you do may be
completely insignificant, it is very important that you do it" - ?

A good number of traffic laws, and their enforcement, are/is unconstitutional
under both state and federal law.  And in the RARE cases where people have
the tenacity to pursue a ticket through the courts, they often win.  In
at least one case that comes to mind, in Wyoming, a man who has no driver's
license has been repeatedly ticketed and brought to trial, only to have the
jury acquit him because he successfully argued that the Constitution protects
his right to travel unobstructed.

The case of air monitoring of traffic speed brings a couple of things to mind.
One is that you, the accused, have the right to be allowed to view the
evidence against you.  What is the evidence of your excessive speed?  Can
the police produce it in court?  Also, the means of monitoring your speed
must be demonstrable to have no possibility of error which would allow your
speed to have been erroneously clocked - and it is VERY difficult for the
state to prove this for, for instance, radar units.  Also, the act itself of
conducting air surveillance is under attack by civil libertarians in
various places right now.

Tickets can be contested on many grounds, but you must be able to present
a CONVINCING LEGAL CASE.  You must be able to cite specific legislation
and precedent which either renders your ticket technically invalid, or
shows the law against you to be invalid (unconstitutional, etc.) or
shows the state's case against you to be insufficient to prove you
(yawn) "guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"  (YAAAAWWWNN!!!).  I once
got a ticket thrown out because the pig forgot to write in the amount of
bail, and I had a copy of the Motor Vehicle Laws of Oregon (which I had to
wave in the idiot-justice-of-the-peace's face after she ignored a letter
pointing out the obvious) which specifically required the amount of bail
as one of the entries on the citation form.  (I love it - of course, I
was guilty of the nonsensical trivia of which I was accused, but that was,
of course, irrelevant.)  Lawyers get paid for being able to present a
structured case, in which they cite all the precedents and quote all the
laws.  It's up to you to decide whether you're able to handle all that.
If you get a lawyer, GET A TRAFFIC SPECIALIST GET A TRAFFIC SPECIALIST
GET A TRAFFIC SPECIALIST!!!  there are some who have never lost a case
and when a judge sees them it knows that whoever hired THAT lawyer
has blood in their eye...  

If you lose in the inevitable idiot-justice-of-the-peace-with-a-third-
grade-education court in which you will first be tried, you can appeal.
If you decide to hire a lawyer AFTER you've been found guilty and decide
to appeal, a lot of lawyers will get upset - they want to be fully informed
on every detail of your case, and you've just cut them out of a whole
bunch of information - I mean, if the judge didn't get the DATE on your
sentence right, you can get off on a technicality, right right right,
droogs???   Hmmmmm...... reminds me... I once saw a kid get out of
an 80 in a 30, in a school zone (65 mommies out there just shit their
pants) because the pig had written 30 in an 80 on his ticket.  No lawyer,
nothing... he just pleaded not guilty, told the judge, and the judge
threw it out - you should have heard the courtroom, and seen the pig's face...

Almost no one who has taken the time out of their life to even make
the gesture of going to court on the $30 ticket is willing to even pay the
$50 or $75 filing fee to appeal the case, much less any lawyers' fees,
or a potential fee for higher-court appeals.  But... the few who are, are
the only hope for the rest of us.  I keep hoping to see a political
action committee or something spring up, dedicated to funding people who
want to fight traffic cases, on a selective basis determined by the amount
of chickenshit legality that would be eliminated from the books if the
case were won definitively.  Anybody know of one?  I'll contribute!