Ohio: Your Typical "No Proof" Speeding Ticket?

State of Ohio

I was pulled over for a ticket this morning. The officer said he clocked me at 72mph and 69mph using laser. After he wrote the ticket and handed it to me, I saw he wrote it up for 72mph. I asked him which clocking occurred first, and he said the 72mph. Then the 69mph clocking followed. I asked if the laser kept track of both values, and he said it only keeps track of the last one taken.

I then asked if he had any proof of the 72mph on any equipment in his vehicle. He said he did not have it. I then said, "Since I'm being ticketed for 72mph, I'd at least like to see some proof that I was going 72mph." And if I saw proof, I would have gladly (well, maybe not gladly, but you know...) paid the ticket. He said he did not have it documented anywhere. So I then asked, to confirm, "So I am being ticketed for something there is absolutely no proof of?" He answered, "Yes."

So, at that point, to avoid any confrontation or problem, I told the officer to go back to his car and write up a new ticket for 69mph and I would be on my way. He refused this option by saying "I am not going to write another ticket." After this, he and I discussed the possibilities of denying the ticket in court as well as what would happen if I didn't sign the ticket. I really didn't want to sign the ticket (I'm not even sure what signing the ticket means), but I did so that I didn't get my license taken away.

Anyway, that's my story. Please tell me what my options are, if any. And if I have no options and will be found guilty, please tell me how that represents a justice system. How can I be ticketed for something I did not do and that the person accusing me has no proof of? Also, what happened to innocent until proven guilty? And if they ask me while in court if I will admit to going 69mph, am I able to take advantage of my rights guaranteed by the 5th ammendment, not having to incriminate myself? Thanks for any and all advice, tips, or heartbreaking answers.

if I have no options and will be found guilty, please tell me how that represents a justice system.

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Your options are to pay the ticket, or fight it in court.

How can I be ticketed for something I did not do

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He says you did. So, how fast were you going?

Also, what happened to innocent until proven guilty?

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I'm not really sure what your point is but, again, innocence vs. guilt is what court is for.

Clt747 said:

He says you did. So, how fast were you going?

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I may have been going 69mph, which he said he had proof of. However, it makes absolutely no sense how I could go from 72 to 69 in two consecutive clockings since I did not see the cop/slow down until he was already standing by the edge of the road pointing at me to pull over. Also, the area I was in was immediately preceeding a speed increase of 10mph, so I actually would have been accelerating for the next speed zone, not slowing down. Also, there were no cars in front of or behind me, so there were no distractions that would have made me slow down.

Clt747 said:

I'm not really sure what your point is but, again, innocence vs. guilt is what court is for.

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I guess my point is I thought the saying was that, in court, you are "innocent until proven guilty." If there is no proof, how can I be proven guilty?

Please understand this situation is completley genuine; and if there is absolutely nothing I can do despite the flaws of the court/justice system, I will follow whatever I have to follow in the end... but I just cannot reasonably see how there's nothing I can do about this.

Read this

http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/23/2348.asp

LIDAR evidence is not admissible without proper expert witness testimony to the accuracy of a LIDAR unit

The case law is even there so you show up in court when the office testifies that he use LIDAR and completes his testimony you ask for dismissal and hand the judge the case law.

The courts are beginning to realize LIDAR is not that accurate and you can not take the officer word for it.

Oh the officer testimony is all the evidence they need, all he has to state is he measure your speed and what he measured, he does not have to produce any print out or physical evidence of what your speed was.

The fact he measure two different speed is an example of how LADAR is not accurate, there is something call slip effect and it can be caused by his hand shaking when trying to measure the speed. The effect gets worse with distance the farther away he is from you the more slip that could have occurred, you might not have even been doing 69 or 72.

I didn't finish reading your post, nor did I read any responses to your post.

Officers are not required to retain proof of your speed since they are considered to be unbiased witnesses on behalf of the state that you committed a crime.

As far as proof goes, I do not know of any machines that "save" recorded speeds or produce any sort of printout of any given speed, and in fact, any such thing would be completely useless as any saves or readouts would not prove that the officer clocked you at that speed, but only clocked "something" at the speed, which may include him moving the gun with his own hand while clocking a speed.

I did catch a glimpse of another post of yours as I was scrolling down, and what I saw included "innocent until proven guilty". Well, the proof the state will provide is the expert unbiased testimony of the officer that you were speeding, and after that it will be up to you to refute that evidence. There will be a poster or two that will offer advice on how to come up with such, but that's what you're in for.

Thank you all for your information on this topic. Both luckily and unluckily, I am going to be out of town (across the country in California) on my set trial date. I read on a couple different web sites (also had heard many times before) that if the officer is not at my trial, it is almost a sure thing to get dismissed since there is no witness against me. I also read that if I am able to set back the trial date at least once, the officer is much more likely to miss the trial date since he schedules the initial trial date around his schedule. How much of this is true?

Maestro,
So I can go to my trial and find out what gun the officer was using; and if it was the radar in that article/court ruling, I can present that case and get dismissed? I didn't think it would be that easy? 'Cuz by the sounds of it, I'm either going to have to have the officer not show up or have him using a faulty laser, or else I'll be found gulity. Does that sound about right?

Thanks again for all your help.

thePITman said:

Thank you all for your information on this topic. Both luckily and unluckily, I am going to be out of town (across the country in California) on my set trial date. I read on a couple different web sites (also had heard many times before) that if the officer is not at my trial, it is almost a sure thing to get dismissed since there is no witness against me. I also read that if I am able to set back the trial date at least once, the officer is much more likely to miss the trial date since he schedules the initial trial date around his schedule. How much of this is true?

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This really depends on the court, the officer usually does not set the date, the court does, grant it they try to make it easy for the officer to show, also in some locations the officer is paid over time for showing up. So doing traffic for some police department is a pay bonus since they get over time pay. The other things some court set up what is call traffic day, it is the day each week or month to hear all traffic ticket so the Officer will show up for 1 or 2 hours to handle all his tickets, because you changed the first day does not mean they will not schedule you for the next time this officer will be in court. Then there is the chance he does not show, but someone else in his place, I have seen this done and they are hopping you do not remember the face of the guy who pulled you over. So any or all of this can happen. It is better to be prepared.

thePITman said:

Maestro,
So I can go to my trial and find out what gun the officer was using; and if it was the radar in that article/court ruling, I can present that case and get dismissed? I didn't think it would be that easy? 'Cuz by the sounds of it, I'm either going to have to have the officer not show up or have him using a faulty laser, or else I'll be found gulity. Does that sound about right?

Thanks again for all your help.

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The case law I reference happen in April 2008 in Ohio, so it very new case law and it is going to have big impact on the local courts ability to win ticket until they can have what is called a Frye hearing on the admissibility of LIDAR evidence at a traffic case. Up to this point Ohio judges used what is called judicial notice on the admissibility of LIDAR as being scientifically proven in a court using expert witness on the accuracy of the LIDAR. This never happen in Ohio but judges were using judicial notice to accept LIDAR evidence which is wrong. This was the first time someone challenge this and won.

You do not have to know what LIDAR units they are using, because you can simply object to the introduction of the LIDAR evidence when the officer says he used a LIDAR unit and state the use of LIDAR has not been proven reliable in the court of law and if the judge tries to use judicial notice you simple object and hand him the case law. Unless they can produce the another case law for the LIDAR unit that shows it was proven in a court he has to dismiss the ticket and follow the ruling of the higher court in Ohio. I am not sure if the local court uses DA or just the police, however, the Office or the DA is the one who has to produce the case law not the Judge.

No it is not that easy, it does require you to understand traffic court procedures and know what to say and when. If you are willing to research and maybe buy a book or two on the subject you can defend yourself and win your case. Or hire a lawyer hand him the case law and let him do the work.

The Ohio Lidar case in April of this year involved an as yet untested (in court) Lidar - the LTI 20-20. As there was no judicial notice (i.e. no prior court ruling determining the device was reliable pursuant to the frye test), then its use was unreliable as evidence.

See this link for the full decision: http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2008/oh-miko.pdf

There ARE Lidar devices in Ohio that HAVE received judicial notice ... chances are very good that the one used in this instance was one such accepted device.

- Carl

CdwJava said:

There ARE Lidar devices in Ohio that HAVE received judicial notice ... chances are very good that the one used in this instance was one such accepted device.

- Carl

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That is not 100% clear either, it appears they did not follow the Frye process on every LIDAR units in use in Ohio. It sounds like they simply relied on a previous case where LIDAR evidence was used not following the Frye standard which appears to be required in Ohio and on specific device it is not a general accepted judicial notice so each device must go through the Frye process

BTW it is my understand there is no Judicial notice of LIDAR In Calif either, but no one seems to have challenged that fact yet.

Judicial Notice

I just got done speaking with my mother, who works as a secretary for the judges in the County Municipal Court where my trial would be held. She said that all the lasers used in the county/state patrol police vehicles in her/this jurisdiction have judicial notice and that the judges have seen/heard a case where there have been expert witnesses there validating the accuracy of the lasers. I mentioned the case about the higher court saying that certain laser wasn't approved, and it reminder her that about 4 weeks ago she remembers someone having her pull a judicial notice file (or something relating to the model and its validity) for the exact model (LT 20-20 or whatever it was), probably to make sure it wasn't being used in the jurisdiction. I guess that option is out of the window for me.

She also told me that I would go in, plead guilty, then have a new date set. At that time, the court would send a sobpeona to the officer in question so that he would, in fact, show up. And combining that with the fact that I argued a little bit while in the car, I'm sure he'd make sure he was there.

thePITman said:

She also told me that I would go in, plead guilty, then have a new date set.

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I think you either mis-typed that, or mis-heard it. If you go in and plead guilty, you're done.

Zigner said:

I think you either mis-typed that, or mis-heard it. If you go in and plead guilty, you're done.

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Right... I meant plead "not guilty." In any case, I found out today that the ticket is not going to raise my insurance premium any like I thought it was going to (my previous 2 tickets have "expired"), so I don't have much of a problem paying $85.

Maestro64 said:

BTW it is my understand there is no Judicial notice of LIDAR In Calif either, but no one seems to have challenged that fact yet.

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I believe you are right. However, I believe most jurisdictions where they are deployed have accepted them as I am aware of some challenges ... it just has not received statewide notice as yet. But, they are in such wide use out here that I suspect it is only a matter of time.

- Carl