I don't think you would be getting in the way of your attorney if you were to simply call and inquire about the court date (if any)... You would be getting in the way if you were to call in an attempt to plea bargain. I would leave the latter to the attorney.
Thanks. Called the court and I think there's a pre-trial conference in three weeks. Guess the obvious answer is easy for me to miss sometimes.
Apologies to the attorney's here, but...
why on Earth did you hire an attorney before you even went to your pre-trial conference? You don't even know what was offered, if anything? Unless you were a dope, most officers will be happy to reduce the charge.
That's a good point. The problem is that I work a two hour drive away (mid-town Manhattan). It's a lot cheaper to have an attorney handle this for me than to take time off from work to handle it. The attorney's also going to do a better job. I have an NJ license and it's going to get really complicated figuring out what's going to affect my driving record and my insurance if I try to settle, and I can't exactly trust the DA to give me advice on this.
So you either mailed it in and pled not guilty, or you showed up on the arraignment date (return date) and pled not guilty?
Mailed it in and pled not guilty on the advice of my attorney.
Chester village court.
So you weren't driving the car? Color of the car doesn't matter.
Yes, I was driving my car- but I don't think it was the car that was speeding. As I think another volunteer who posts here puts it, my defense is "You got the wrong dude." (YGTWD)
I think the color might matter if the police officer who pulled me over was different than the officer who got "my" speed, it was at night, and the place where I was pulled over was four miles down the road from where they caught *someone* speeding. It tells me the officer who got the speed might not have been able to positively identify the car that was speeding on a very busy highway. If they thought the guy who was speeding was driving a red car, why did they pull over a gray car instead?
I'm not suggesting they must have pulled someone over completely at random- I'm sure there's a good reason they thought it might have been my car that was speeding, but there's a lot of doubt here when they couldn't positively identify the vehicle and the stop was made several miles down the road by a different police car than the one that got "my" (or more likely, some red car's) speed.
Two different police cars, no positive identification by the police officer who caught someone speeding. There's probably a few things here that I don't know, but I'm not sure they can prove this beyond all reasonable doubt given what evidence I've seen so far. My lawyer also says he thinks there's a better than average chance he can beat this if it goes all the way to trial, but I'd rather just settle now if I can keep it off my driving record.