Ticket Update

[George Selby]

At 10:57 AM 1/24/02, you wrote:
>All one has to do in such a case is play dumb and don't appear in
>court (they're not summoning you to appear, they want a guy with
>another name :-)) "Vangerbug? Who? Never heard of him. Nah, me
>don't know ****, you guys must have us confused."

On the ticket, they also write down your address, license number, the
license plate number off your car, phone number and enough of a description
(sex, race, and age) to be able to match you up as long as they get most of
the info right (even more info is attached to your license, if the license
number is right, they can get even more of a physical description, such as
height, weight, and eye color, not to mention a picture, which the officer
can look at to verify you are the right person.)  In order to get out of a
ticket here in North Carolina for this reason, almost everything would have
to be wrong in order for them not to find you (so they can't throw you in
jail for not showing up in court.)   One's best chance in the above
situation is to go to court, and claim that with all the errors on the
ticket, maybe the officer made an error when reading (or writing down) the
speed from his radar.

I once had a ticket for a noise ordinance violation (with the lowest
powered and smallest subwoofers I have ever had installed in a car, less
then 50 watts total going to 2 8" woofers,) and the name was wrong as well
as the court date.   He called in and discovered his court date for the
month I was pulled over in was full, so he went to the next month, but he
only changed the date on my copy of the ticket, and not the part that went
to the state.  They showed up at my door 2 days later to arrest me at 6 am;
good thing I don't answer the door at that time, I called the number they
left at my doorstep and met them at the clerk of court's office.  I showed
the clerk of court the ticket and she laughed, saying I had changed the
date on the ticket.  I pointed out that they generally give you more than 2
days between a ticket and the court date, but she still made them arrest
me.  Magistrate let me out without bail, and I immediately went to file a
complaint with the officer's department.  The officer happened to be on
vacation for 3 weeks (until like 3 days before the next court date.)  He
called me the day before the new court date and told me he was very sorry,
and would drop all charges against me.

I showed up in court and the cop who pulled me over wasn't there.  The
judge asked me how I pleaded, and I said "not guilty, the officer isn't
here, therefore you have no evidence against me."  He got all upset about
how I was wasting his time, and told me that they would get the officer
directly.  I told him that was fine, when he showed up he would testily for
ME, and I still plead not guilty.  The judge and DA both expressed a
shocked look on their face, and told me to sit down.  About 10 minutes
later the DA walked up to me and told me I was free to leave.  HA.  They
looked very unhappy about the whole matter, the judge wouldn't look me in
the eye as I left (this was a very small court in a small town.)


George Selby
83 Audi Coupe GT
gselby4x4 at earthlink.net