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I plead the Fifth!!

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Banned_Princess

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY. For the most part.


In traffic court, If I am arguing a speeding ticket, when asked questions about the incident, can I plea the fifth as to not incriminate myself to speeding??


Ma'am, did you see the posted speed limit?

Ma'am, did you know how fast you were going?

Ma'am, how often do you travel the road in question?

Ma'am what was the hurry?

Ma'am, are you calling this officer a lier?




How exactly does my fifth amendment right work?
 


Mass_Shyster

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NY. For the most part.


In traffic court, If I am arguing a speeding ticket, when asked questions about the incident, can I plea the fifth as to not incriminate myself to speeding??


Ma'am, did you see the posted speed limit?

Ma'am, did you know how fast you were going?

Ma'am, how often do you travel the road in question?

Ma'am what was the hurry?

Ma'am, are you calling this officer a lier?




How exactly does my fifth amendment right work?
I don't know the answer to your question, but I believe it's worth fighting. My son got stopped in NY last month. He got something in the mail saying the fine was around $280. Since it was easier to just pay it than go back to NY to fight it, he paid it. Yesterday, he received another correspondence stating that he now owes an additional $300 for 'points'.

Gotta love full disclosure.
 

The Occultist

Senior Member
You've not been to court for a moving violation, have you?

They will not ask you those questions, and here's why:

They don't need to ask you whether or not you saw the posted limit as that is irrelevant; you should, legally, be aware of that already.

You don't need to know how fast you were going; the citing officer already knows.

How often you travel the road is completely irrelevant.

What the hurry was is also irrelevant (there is no code that allows an emergency as excuse for speeding).

Your opinion of the officer is also completely irrelevant.

Traffic court does not operate the same as criminal court (for one, traffic violations tend to be civil, not criminal!). The court will likely not even question you. The state (prosecutor, usually with the citing officer), will explain to the judge that the officer (an expert, unbiased witness on behalf of the state) noticed whatever he noticed. If you try and disagree based on simply disagreeing, you lose. The court will not bother asking you questions because they don't need to; they already have the testimony of the aforementioned unbiased expert witness.

Based on what I have said, I submit that your question is irrelevant.
 

tranquility

Senior Member
You can testify or you can not testify. You cannot choose to testify about certain things and not others. If you testify, they can ask any questions they want and you cannot "plead the fifth" to any individual question. If you don't testify, the nice officer will say you did it and the court will determine if they proved up the case.
 

Maestro64

Member
As it was said above, you have a choice, which is to testify or not.

However, what usually happens many times is the judge tends to swear everyone in at once so once sworn in they assume you are testify why else allow yourself to be sworn in. Yes, sometime the judge or DA or officer depending on who is prosecuting your case will try and trick you into answering questions whether you have been sworn in or not. Most traffic case are simply lost on the fact the person makes some sort of omission of guilt or wrong doing and this is what the court hopes you do since it make it easy for them.

Yes you can be found guilty simple on the words of the officer unless you are prepare to rip his evidence apart. Next and probably most important do not answer any question as they relate to the case, it is a simple way to get you to admit to wrong doing. When asked a questions about the what you did said or saw, you simple say politely that you are not testifying and continue to ask your question to the officer.

BTW, the fifth amendment just allows you not to incriminate yourself if you are not already on trail for something, once on trial and if you decide to testify you pretty much have to answer any question asked. The only way to exercise your rights not to incriminate yourself is by not testifying in the first place.
 

Maestro64

Member
Traffic court does not operate the same as criminal court (for one, traffic violations tend to be civil, not criminal!). The court will likely not even question you. The state (prosecutor, usually with the citing officer),
Occultist, you know there is only a hand full of state which made traffic ticket civil offense, NY is still criminal which means it suppose to follow all the same rules as any criminal cases. However, I have seen where judge makes statements about preponderance of the evidence and people are guilt in a traffic case in a state which is a criminal matter and people allow it.

It is funny as soon as you let the court know you will not allow them to use civil laws to convict you on a criminal traffic violation the attitude changes
 

Banned_Princess

Senior Member
I actually deleted the thread because I decided it was a stupid question.


Obviously it wasn't so stupid :)



Yes traffic court is mostly the same as criminal court, if you don't want to just pay the ticket. I think they count on most people just paying the ticket.



I have not received such a summons, but my brother recently tried to defend himself against a speeding ticket, and he was doing well, until he was asked questions like did he see the posted limit, and how often did he use the road. (yes I saw it -*doh!! I travel the road daily *-Doooh!!)


lol, so I thought if he had the right not to incriminate himself, he wouldn't have to answer that making it harder to convict him... the judge and the officer didn't seem amused with his TV court battle style.


I think just the fact of invoking your right not to incriminate yourself, by definition, you just incriminated yourself.
 

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