Is an error on my ticket enough to get it thrown out?

[brendanx]

I live in Massachusetts.

I was given a ticket for doing 80 in a 55. The officer insulted my intelligence and awarded me ticket that has the incorrect time on it.

He apparently tailed me for one mile and THEN clocked me, which means that he watched me drive for about 45 seconds. That's about the time it took for me (1) to realize the situation I was in, (2) move into the passing lane, (3) advance my speed, (4) pass the automobile ahead of me and (5) ensure a safe distance between myself and his/her erradic driving.

So anyway, he hands me the ticket and later that night I realize that it's WRONG. It's for $250 and I mean, that's fine, but this thing is just WRONG. It's been timestamped 30 MINUTES later than it actually was -- IN MILITARY TIME NO LESS. So where the trooper pulls me over at 10:45p (22:45) he has originally written 23:15!

At my first hearing I asked the trooper who was present how his fellow trooper could have looked at the clock and mistaken 10:45 for 11:15 -- he didn't have an answer. I am now approaching my second hearing and would like to know if anyone has any experience with INCORRECT tickets and how to fight them.

What rights do I have in this situation? I'm aware that during my first hearing that the ticket was the physical proof of my speeding and therefore I was guilty before innocent. With the court date I have coming up it should be reversed and this should give me some room to be able to convince a judge that if PART of the sole piece of evidence that proves me wrong is wrong itself, then any shadow of doubt that could have been cast on this should extend to cover the entire thing -- that is to say: if one part of it is wrong (and so foolishly and inexplicably wrong) then how can anyone prove that ALL parts of it are not wrong?

SO:

- Does anyone have experience with a ticket-situation like this?
- How was it handled? (By you; by the judge)

Any advice or help would be greatly appreciated!

-Brendan

[Curt581]

I could tell you the correct answers to your questions, and possibly give you some solid advise on how to handle your situation.

However, based on the tone of your post, you wouldn't like or agree with it. So I won't bother.

Go to your next court date. Voice your arguments.

Don't forget your checkbook.

[brendanx]

Can you explain how my opinion on this is incorrect, then? Regardless of my tone I'd like to exchange some ideas with people who've been in similiar situations and/or have some legal knowledge under their belt. I wouldn't have posted on this message board if I didn't want advice

I just don't see how it's possible for an officer to be so blatently wrong on a ticket and then expect for me/the rest of the world to believe that he couldn't possibly have been wrong on all of the ticket. How does someone look at 10:45p and see 11:15p and then cross it out and try to fudge the correct time in if he ISN'T timestamping to fill a ticket-writing quota? Until someone can explain this error I will probably maintain belief that if you can screw up part of the only evidence that suggests I was speeding that badly, it's ENTIRELY possible that the rest could be just as badly screwed up as well!

But your thoughts are more than encouraged. I really do want to hear them!

[lwpat]

The officer insulted my intelligence

I didn't think that was possible to do to someone that was from MA.

[brendanx]

Hahahahaha!

The insult was that I had just purchased my car from my father and he's a whiz-bang with cars and knowing about them and he didn't mention at all to me that I had to change the sticker over (even though it's still got a few months to go). The trooper asked, and I explained that I had JUST purchased the car and that I was unaware of this fact. His response: "How old are you?" (I'm 24) to which he replied "Does your daddy need to tell you everything?"

I had no answer lol.

In truth, I left out the exact exchange between he and I because it's inconsequential to the ticket and my court hearings. But if you want an extra laugh, he made more than one mistake (the one being my ticket), this one was pretty good: When trying to describe the speed that I was apparently moving at he told me "YOU WERE MOVING SO FAST YOU LOOKED LIKE YOU WEREN'T MOVING AT ALL."

Just try to wrap your head around that!

[Curt581]

Originally Posted by brendanx

Can you explain how my opinion on this is incorrect, then?

Nope... you've already convinced yourself of your righteousness. Who am I to burst your bubble?

But your thoughts are more than encouraged. I really do want to hear them!

No. Sorry. Not tellin' ya.

[Curt581]

Originally Posted by brendanx

Hahahahaha!

The insult was that I had just purchased my car from my father and he's a whiz-bang with cars and knowing about them and he didn't mention at all to me that I had to change the sticker over (even though it's still got a few months to go). The trooper asked, and I explained that I had JUST purchased the car and that I was unaware of this fact. His response: "How old are you?" (I'm 24) to which he replied "Does your daddy need to tell you everything?"

I had no answer lol.

In truth, I left out the exact exchange between he and I because it's inconsequential to the ticket and my court hearings. But if you want an extra laugh, he made more than one mistake (the one being my ticket), this one was pretty good: When trying to describe the speed that I was apparently moving at he told me "YOU WERE MOVING SO FAST YOU LOOKED LIKE YOU WEREN'T MOVING AT ALL."

Just try to wrap your head around that!

Wrap your head around this:

Has anyone who was listening to you talk ever smacked you upside the head in midsentence for no apparent reason?

[brendanx]

Righteousness has to do with morality; you might have that mistaken for "conceited." If this is the case, I'd more-than agree with you that I do have a little bit of conceit when it comes to this situation as I do believe that I am (at least partially) right. And until this matter and its ever subsequent inconsistancy is explained to me, I will probably continue to believe that I am right in arguing this.

However, if I'm conceited for believing that, you're probably just as conceited for lording your information on a messageboard who's sole intent is providing FREE ADVICE

[You Are Guilty]

Here's a hint - that little [URL=http://forum.freeadvice.com/search.php?]search button[/URL] is your friend. This exact question has been answered countless times already.

[brendanx]

lol Curt, are you saying that you also think it's possible for someone to be moving so fast that they appear to not be moving at all?

[Curt581]

Originally Posted by brendanx

lol Curt, are you saying that you also think it's possible for someone to be moving so fast that they appear to not be moving at all?

Not at all.

I simply see you as pompous, condescending, and in desperate need of an old-school beat-down. I lament the fact that it won't be me that administers it.

And I'm not "lording" anything. I'm just not giving you advise that I know you'll refuse to accept.

You should thank me.

[CdwJava]

I'm curious ... how did the officer "timestamp" a citation in the field??

If he WROTE the time, then the question becomes which time did he write? The time of the initial stop? The time he read off his watch? The time from the car's clock radio? The time he finished writing the cite and handed it to you?

There are times that my car's clock on the radio might be way off due to a battery change or some such issue ... or my watch ... or Dispatch's times - something. These are not usually a fatal flaw in the citation.

In my state this would not likely be an issue unless you were arguing that there were other mistakes as well.

- Carl

[marbol]

Originally Posted by brendanx

I live in Massachusetts.

I was given a ticket for doing 80 in a 55. The officer insulted my intelligence and awarded me ticket that has the incorrect time on it.

[...]

So where the trooper pulls me over at 10:45p (22:45) he has originally written 23:15!

I've seen tickets dismissed in Texas for errors, but not ever for something as small as this. Are you really serious? You are talking about 30 minutes. I know that sometimes when I am stopped, the whole thing can take 30 minutes. Are you sure this isn't what happened? Maybe you argued with the cop for the 30 minutes? If so, maybe you should consider yourself lucky for not getting more counts added to it.

[brendanx]

Originally Posted by CdwJava

I'm curious ... how did the officer "timestamp" a citation in the field??


- Carl

Carl: Originally, the trooper had filled in the time as 23:15 (11:15pm). I was pulled over at 22:45 (10:45pm). He then wrote over the first time with the second time. Timestamping has been considered widely plausible in Massachusetts (I'm certainly not the first to complain of it here!). The fact of the matter is that my ticket had an original time that was a half hour LATER than when I got pulled over and I don't see any possible way for a trooper to look at a clock and see the time as being 30 minutes off, mistaking 22:45 as 23:15.

If he can botch those two sets of numbers up so badly he was probably timestamping his tickets to meet a quota; if this is not the case, then I have to believe that the "shadow of a doubt" extends to cover the entire ticket (primarily the part where he says he viewed me at 80mph in a 55).

I just think that it's a really raw deal (and one that is worth arguing!) that the ticket is the only piece of evidence the state has against me, and that one piece is flawed very significantly and verrrry suspiciously (so much so that in court, the trooper present as a representative insinuated that I made the change, which would have been impossible considering he read the time of the ticket according the police records as 10:45pm. There's no way I could have known the exact time at which the ticket was written (considering he was in the car for five minutes or so) and there's no reason for ME to have changed it to the correct time!).

When something seems this strange to me, I tend to get the feeling that I'm somehow getting screwed lol.

[CdwJava]

When I see the term "timestamp" I'm thinking of a device that stamps the time on something, not someone writing a time IN to the citation.

Regardless of the time on the cite, you would still have to contest the facts of the citation. Unless you are fortunate enough to get a judge that has a bone to pick over that particular trivial item, it is not likely to get you off the hook. The time does nothing to effect the elements of the offense. And even if you can show that it was intentional it still does little to nothing to defend against the violation you are accused of.

I have seen defense attornies in major criminal cases attempt to make hay on time estimates without success - I'm going to guess an attempt to make an issue out of it in a traffic case will meet with a similar result.

If you are going to make a defense, do NOT harp on the time issue. Mention it and move on. Unless the judge is sympathetic to you and looking for ANY piece of misinformation to grasp on to, harping on it will likely only serve to tick him off. Make your defense based upon the speed, location, estimate, whatever ... but do not make too big a deal out of the time issue as it will almost certainly play out against you.

EDIT: And if the officer corrected it in the field, then you really have no issue. He corrected it. Heck, I've put the wrong day and date on a cite before and then corrected them. It happens.

- Carl