FW: Ticket Update - Final Brief for Review

[Livolsi, Stephane]

I don't know if any of it is going to do any good.  My understanding here in
BC, Canada is that the accuracy of radar has previously been proven to the
satisfaction of the courts and any argument against it's accuracy because of
the way the road curved, etc will fall flat.  I assume (a dangerous thing to
do) that most other jurisdictions in the developed world would adopt a
similar position.

I once fought a speeding ticket and was unceremoniously put in my place by
the judge.  My position was that there were other vehicles on the road and
the officer could not have known for sure that the reading he got on his
radar was from my vehicle.  I asked him "how do you know for a fact that the
reading on your radar unit came from my vehicle?"  He would turn to the
judge and say" Your honor, I have 15 years as a highway patrol officer and
it is my opinion that the reading came from the defendant's vehicle"  I
tried to pursue asking "But how did you know for a fact?" and he did the
same thing, turned to the judge and repeated the same words.  I tried
pushing it some more and the judge told me the question had been answered
and to move on to other questions. Well!!  Somebody woke up on the wrong
side of the bed!

I lost.  Point is that the cop did not have to PROVE that he caught me on
radar.  The court accepted that if he was confident it was me, then it must
have been me.

On the other hand, I once fought a ticket for driving without due care and
consideration, which I won.  A major part of my argument was that the
conviction would have serious repercussions (loss of licence, loss of job)
and that there is no way the officer could be certain the offence was
committed. Perhaps he was 'inconvenienced' by my action, but was it really a
lack of consideration?  The judge quoted this statement in his summary
before finding that there was insufficient evidence to support the charge.

Maybe it just depends on the judge you are up against.

Hope you have better luck, Alex.

Stephane

> ----------
> From: 	Alexander van Gerbig[SMTP:Audi_80 at email.msn.com]
> Sent: 	January 27, 2002 8:35 PM
> To: 	Audi; 20v; s-car-list at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: 	Ticket Update - Final Brief for Review
>
>     Howdy folks!  Well after feverishly working for the past week with a
> great fellow through the NMA I have finished my brief and case preparation
> for my court case on this coming Tuesday.  For those who don't remember or
> haven't been around, I was charged with 69mph in a 35mph zone in
> Shelburne,
> VT.  It is literally impossible for anyone to calmly travel at that speed
> in
> the are where I was ticketed, plus the officer was heading towards me
> supposedly with moving radar on and functioning properly.
>
>     The real argument I should be going after is that when cresting a hill
> the moving radar clocking the cruiser speed may have completely lost
> contact
> with the side of the road causing the unit to believe the cruiser was not
> moving or moving very slowly, possibly the cosine error occurred in this
> case as well due to the two tight corners where he met me head on.  Since
> the cruiser speed display is only refreshed 2 times a second it may have
> never visually registered as a slower or even 0mph speed.  I may have just
> caught this exact moment when the radar clocked speed of the cruiser was
> at
> a very low rate, thus the extra actual speed of his car is added to my
> speed
> by the radar equipment.  BUT this is next to impossible to prove, so nuts
> to
> that, secondary case.
>
>     Take a look at the brief...
> http://www.uvm.edu/avangerb/~finalbrief.doc.
> The brief explains in quite a lengthy fashion how federal guidelines for
> determining the speed limit in question have been ignored.  I have 25-30
> pages of supporting evidence on top of this brief and should manage to tie
> up the court for quite a while if the judge would like me to present the
> case vs. just taking the brief, reading it, and making a ruling later.
> Not
> sure how it will all go down, but I've got a whole gameplan set up.
>
>     Tell me what y'all think and wish me luck!  Thanks again for the
> support!
>
> Alexander van Gerbig
> '91 200q20v (Crunched)
> '90 90q20v (Sport)
> '88 80t (R.I.P)
>
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>
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>
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>