How I Beat my Speeding Ticket (Part 3)

Motion to exclude Evidence and Testimony
Hopefully, you've waited 15-20 days and NOT gotten any evidence from the prosecution. You will want to file a motion to exclude the evidence and testimony you requested in discovery, but did not get. At this point you can either file your motion immediately, or wait till you are a bit closer to your TBD date and file it. I can't say what's best for you, but here are some things to think about. First, if your court is unlikely to hear your motion, then filing it sooner allows you to say that you've done everything in your power and if the courts procrastinate, then they must exclude the evidence during trial. On the otherhand, filing too early may give the court time to order the prosecution to provide you with the requested evidence in a timely manner.

Now suppose you were able to submit your motion, and a judge is willing to hear and decide on it. If the judge says that he can only order the prosecution to pony up the evidence, remind him of your TBD date and the timely requirement for discovery. At that time the judge may tell you that you should ask for a continuance (ie an extension), but you should kindly remind him of your rights to a speedy trial. If he says you must pick either timely evidence or a speedy trial, tell him you are guarunteed both under the constitution, and that the evidence should be rejected if it cannot be produced in time. If on the other hand, the judge says that you forfeited your right to a speedy trial when you requested a TBD, kindly remind him that VC 40519(b) only applies to people who entered a written non-guilty plea and since you plead not-guilty in court, you still have the right to a speedy trial.

Writing your motion
My motion is very specific to my case, so I won't be sharing it, but here are some tips on what to include in it:

• Structure your motion into five sections: What you want, Relevant Facts, What the Law says, Your legal argument, and your conclusion (which reiterates what you want).
• Use PC 1054.5(c) in your Law section as the basis of excluding testimony. You may also use other parts of PC 1054 to support your motion also.
• Ensure that you legal argument is sound and makes use of the laws you stated.
• Include copies of all the documents proving that you sent the discovery request and that it was received by someone there. These should be labeled Exhibit A, B, C,...
• Make sure your argument is striving towards a legitimate reason why evidence or testimony should be deemed inadmissible.
• Include a statement at the end saying in effect that you swear this is the truth under penalty of perjury.

Submitting your motion
I'll be honest, in that I don't really know what's the best way to submit my motion, since event the court clerk didn't know. I would suggest that you call the courts and find out. If they tell you to go to walk-in-court get them to tell you how to get an appointment or if there are special days where more cases are heard. You can also try going to the booth where you're suppose to pay your traffic fines and asking them to attach a motion to your case, but i'm not sure that counts as having your motion submitted to the courts.

Go back to Part 1
Go back to Part 2

How I beat my Speeding Ticket (Part 2)

I've received several requests to see the documents I used, so here they are. If you use them, be sure to replace the relevant portions with the particulars of your case.
Remember this is a Request for Discovery, you will need to send this via certified mail w/ signature confirmation (get a print out of the signature online once its delivered) to be able to prove that the prosecution received it. To be really sure this is valid, have a friend fill out a Proof of Service Form(there are a ton of em on the net) and do all your mailings. Be sure to keep a copy of each signed form.

Who to send this to?
Technically, you must send this to the prosecution, but who is the prosecution? In most cases, if you were stopped by the city police, it will be the city attorney. If you were stopped by the CHP, then it is the county DA. If you want to cover your bases, you could send it to both (like what I did), but you do run the risk of having one of the agencies actually responding to your request.

When do I send this?
I would suggest that you send this the same day that go to court in person and plea NOT GUILTY and request a trial by declaration (TBD) (I believe this part is called arraignment). When you request TBD, the courts will immediately set a deadline for you to turn in your TBD a few weeks after arraignment. This is good because, by law, the prosecution is allowed 15 days to provide you with the evidence you requested. So if the 15 days are up, and you're only a few days from trial (TBD due date), then you have good cause for having all that evidence you requested deemed as inadmissible because it cannot be given to you in a timely manner.

What do I do next?
You wait 15 days (possibly 20 if you make your request by mail). Hopefully, the prosecution didn't send you anything. If they didn't, then you should try to submit a pretrial motion to get the requested evidence rejected (I'll talk about this in Part 3).

Here is my Request for Discovery:

Your Name
My Street Address
My City, My State My ZIP
My Phone Number
Pro Per

---

SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
COUNTY OF YOUR COUNTY, YOUR CITY SUPERIOR COURT

---

PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA vs. YOUR NAME

Case No. XXXXXX DISCOVERY REQUEST

---

Regarding Citation Number: XXXXX
Citing Officer: XXXXXXX #BADGE NUMBER

Pursuant to California Penal Code sections 1054 and 1054.1, and California Government Code section 26500, the defendant in the above entitled matter does hereby request under discovery the following:
1)The names and addresses of all the witnesses who may be called to testify against the defendant at the trial
2)Relevant written or recorded statements of witnesses or reports of the statements of witnesses whom the prosecutor intends to call at the trial, including any reports or statements of experts made in conjunction with the case, including the results of physical or mental examinations, scientific tests, experiments, or comparisons which the prosecutor intends to offer in evidence at the trial.
3)The citing officer's daily log for the night of THE NIGHT OF YOUR TICKET
4)A list of all method(s) used in the determination of the defendant's vehicle speed
5)A copy of all records regarding the maintenance and calibration of any device used to determine the defendant's vehicle speed.
6)A copy of each and every certification issued to citing officer involving the use of said device(s)
7)A copy of all of the citing officer's notes on this case including copies of the front and back of the officer’s copy of the ticket.
8)If a radar device was used to ascertain the defendant's speed,
a)Include a copy of all certificates of accuracy, repair records, and calibration records of the tuning forks used to calibrate those radar devices
b)Include a copy of the manufacturers manual and specifications of the radar unit
c)Include a copy of the Department's FCC License to operate the radar unit
d)Include a copy of all documents certifying that the officer operating the radar has completed a radar operator course of not less than 24 hours on the use of police traffic radar.
e)Include a copy of all documents proving that the radar operator course was certified by the Commission on Peace Office Standards and Training
9)If a laser or any other electronic device was used to ascertain the defendant's speed, then include the documents in (7) (d) and a document certifying that the officer took an additional training course of no less than 2 hours that was certified by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.
10)If the defendant's speed was determined through visual estimation, then include a description of all visual indicators and/or reference points used by the officer in his estimation.
11)Copies of all photos or videos taken of the defendant or of the vehicle he is alleged to have been driving, at or near the time of the alleged violation in this case. Please assure that all copies of photographic materials (still or video) are the same resolution as the originals, and that all copies of videos are the same length and "frame rate" (frames per second) as the originals. Please also assure that if the original photos were "digital," the copies provided are also in a digital form.
12)Information and materials favorable to the accused and material either to guilt or to punishment (Brady v. Maryland (1963) 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194.), or mandated by the United States Constitution (Penal Code Sec. 1054(e).), as follows:
(a). Exculpatory evidence, i.e., any evidence, information, documents and other materials favorable to the defendant in the possession of the office of the city attorney, or of any police department involved in the investigation of the case against defendant, or of any agency or person and available to the prosecution through the exercise of due diligence. (Randle v. City and County of San Francisco (1986) 186 Cal. App.3d 449; Evans v. Janing (8th Cir., 1973) 489 F.2d 470; U.S. v. Eley (N.D. Ga, 1972) 335 F.Supp. 353.)

Please note: PC 1054.1 uses the imperative, “shall disclose.” The only place in the law where we find any choice in this matter is in Government Code 26500, which states in part:
The public prosecutor shall attend the courts, and within his or her discretion shall initiate and conduct on behalf of the people all prosecutions for public offenses. (emphasis added)
Obviously the public prosecutor would not violate the law, therefore we will have to interpret a failure to provide the documents requested under discovery as an exercise of the discretion provided for in GC 26500 and a decision not to prosecute this case.


This request is made on this the THE DAY YOU SEND THIS.



_______________________
YOUR NAME


Goto Part 3
Go back to Part 1

How I beat my California Speeding Ticket

I got the results of my Trial by Declaration in the mail today. My case was dismissed and noted at the bottom of my Decision and Notice of Decision, the words "insufficient evidence" was written. Unfortunately, I don't know if I won because of the motions, objections, and arguments that I presented, or because the officer never bothered to send in his side of the story. However, since I won because of "insufficient evidence" instead of "failure to prosecute" I probably won this out of my own merit.

Anyhow, the preparation that I did for my case provided me with a lot of information that might help some of you in the cases that you might face.

Know what you were cited for
I think most people would be surprised after reading the actual law behind the citation they got. Take for example a common citation, VC 22350, aka The Basic Speed Law:

No person shall drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than is reasonable or prudent having due regard for weather, visibility, the traffic on, and the surface and width of, the highway, and in no event at a speed which endangers the safety of persons or property.

Notice how there is no mention of a posted speed limit sign. As long as you can show that you were driving a safe speed for the conditions, you have not violated this law. I read of one case where the driver asked the officer if he thought he was driving at an unsafe speed. The officer responded no, and noted the conversation down on the ticket. During the trial, the driver said that by the officer's own account, he was driving at a safe speed, therefore he had not violated the law. The judge was then forced to rule in his favor.

Unfortunately for me, I was cited for a violation of VC22349(a) The Maximum Speed Law:

Except as provided in Section 22356, no person may drive a vehicle upon a highway at a speed greater than 65 miles per hour.

This is much harder to defend against since the officer only has to prove that I was going over 65. In addition, there is a popular defense known as the Speed Trap Defense which doesn't apply to this code.

Read the laws
I know its a pain, but California laws are actually quite readable. You don't need a law degree to read them. Just know that when they say "Notwithstanding XXX", it means that the following decree overrides the XXX. So if you are planning to use a part of the law like subdivision (b) of Section 22351 then make sure there are no other laws with the phrase "Notwithstanding subdivision (b) of Section 22351",... Like there is in VC22348. You don't need to read everything, just try to find anything that might be relavent to your case. If you can connect your defense strategies to an actual vehicle code or penal code then it will become much, much stronger. Even if you find out that a particular code that you want to use is negated by another code, you can still employ it as one of your many defense strategies. Just because you know it shouldn't work, doesn't mean that the judge, officer, and prosecutor will know.

PC 1054.1 is your Friend
Discovery is the process by which both the defense and the prosecution must share evidence and disclose witnesses with each other before they may be used at trial. Discovery is one of the cornerstones of due process in our judical system. Without it, prosecutions could easily ambush the defense with falsified or illegal evidence. They could also put on the stand witnesses that would otherwise be unfit to testify without fear of rebuttal from the defense. The key to using discovery to your advantage is that once you are in discovery, only evidence and witnesses presented in discovery will be allowed in court (you'll have to make an objection of course). So the strategy here is to make sure that you get into discovery (by sending an informal discovery request to the prosecution) and hope that either the prosecution doesn't send you anything or that they send you "exculpatory evidence" (ie evidence that will show your innocence). Make sure that for every discovery request you submit, you have your friend deliver it for you (to the post office) and have him fill out a "proof of service" form that you keep to prove that the request was indeed sent to the post office. Then make sure that you get signature confirmation for the delivery from the post office. That way, if the prosecution fails to send you anything, you can prove that somebody there received it. I sent a request to both the city attorney (where I was cited) and to the district attorney. Its very important that the request goes to all the people that could claim to be the prosecution. Luckily, none of the prosecutions gave me any evidence, therefore, at trial I could object to any evidence or witness presented against me.

Find out how to get a hearing at your court
I wish I had known about this sooner. Courts don't want to deal with traffic violations. Some courts, like the one I went to, have an ingenious plan to provide the least access while appearing to make the courts seem even more accessible. They call this "walk-in court". It really should be called, "wait outside in the cold for a few hours and hope court" because even if you waited all morning, the courts will only see a set number of cases that day and the rest get to go home (unless of course you wanna just pay up your fine). If the court you are assigned to has walk-in court demand that you want a scheduled court hearing as soon as possible, even if you don't know what you want it for. The court clerk on the phone told me, that I had to go to walk-in court but it wasn't until I got moved to the "get to go home" line that they told me I could go to a super tuesday night court session two weeks later. Remember that you can probably extend your due date by 2 months online if you search for it on the back of your ticket or courtesy notice. That should give you enough time to secure a hearing.

File your Motions
If you've secured your hearing date, then you should try to submit any motions you have a few days prior to the court clerk. Since no evidence was provided to me at discovery, I made a motion to exclude all evidence and testimony. The clerk I spoke with had no clue as to how to accept the motion so I was forced to submit it during my walk-in court hearing. At the hearing the commissioner said that she couldn't make a ruling then and alluded to the fact that I should have submitted it earlier if I wanted a ruling now! If I had know better, I would have gotten the traffic clerk to go talk to the criminal clerk and ask them how they accept pre-trial motions.
This also could have been a blessing in disguise. I read of another case where the judge refused to exclude the evidence and instead made a court order to compel the prosecution to produce the requested evidence. If this had happened to me, I would have argued that if the prosecution does not intend to produce the evidence at trial, then I don't care to have the evidence either.

Trial by Declaration
My trial started with more pre-trial motions reiterating my submitted motion to exclude evidence, followed by motions to dismiss due to lack of evidence. If the motion to dismiss did not work, I brought up objections to the prosecution use of any evidence not found in discovery as being a failure of due process. The only card left for the prosecution to pull out of the hat, was that courts often consider an officer's visual estimation of speed as an accurate measure of speed. I made a objection based on lack of foundation to any visual estimation. I that the prosecution needs to establish with evidence that the officer can accurately determine speed visually. Since all evidence is excluded, he has no foundation to support that claim. The officer would not need foundation if he could claim that he never calibrated himself using any devices. But, of course, if he never calibrated himself then, he's declaring that the even he doesn't know if he is accurate.

Additional Tips

• Be nice to the court clerks, even if they aren't nice to you. You'll probably be asking them questions they never heard before and the last thing you need is to be labeled a troublemaker. If they ask you if you are a lawyer or a law student or a wanna-be lawyer always say "law student". You studied the law right? Anyhow they will be more cooperative with you if they think you are one.
• Time your submittal for discovery to be as late as possible while still being in time for you to legitimately file a motion to exclude or compel evidence (20 days by mail) on the day of your hearing. This reduces the likelihood that the officer will recollect what happened or or be able to reproduce the evidence.
• Don't testify if you can win without doing so, especially if you are going to incriminate yourself. Some people will say something like "I was only doing 70 in the 65 zone, but the officer said I was doing 80". Since they were still breaking the law at 70, they would be found guilty, even if all the other arguments they put up were successful. If your case does go to trial, you should phrase your questions to the witness (if you failed to get them excluded) so that they provide all the testimony that you need which you will later try to poke holes in.

I'd like to thank several websites that provided me with useful, but not entirely complete information on how to fight my ticket.

• Ticket Assassin - This inspired me to fight my ticket. Although the information about the advantages of trial by declarations are accurate, their examples wouldn't work for my violation , a VC 22349(a). Chances are if you are on the highway when you get pulled over, then you will get one of these tickets instead of the much easier to defend VC 22350. I found their strategy to be too reliant on a single tactic which may or may not work. A good defense employs several strategies to increase their odds.
• ExpertLaw.com - Their forums are packed with information about traffic ticket defense strategies, tactics used by the prosecution, and most importantly, info about discovery. Be sure to check that the tips you get are relavant to your state!

Since a lot of people have asked, I've included additional info on how to write the docs you need to send in. There are in Part 2 and Part 3 of this article. Links below.

Click here to read part 2

Click here to read part 3