LSP's failure to supply DA's Office with Citation/Summons by Court Date....

[AmosMoses]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?

 

[HighwayMan]

You need to post a question if you expect any type of answer.

 

[AmosMoses]

Oh, Man! Thank you, Firefox, for that little left arrow browser backer-upper!!

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Louisiana

If an individual is cited by a Louisiana State Trooper for a traffic offense in Louisiana (speeding, with the driver's license NOT secured as bond by the trooper), and the trooper summons the offender at a court date a full two months in advance of the alleged offense date, then what happens to the citation if it doesn't get turned in to the DA's office by said court date...and there's no mention whatsoever of the offender on the court docket that day?

Hopefully, my question is stated clearly enough above such that it is readily answerable as is, and someone can help me out on it solely by reading the question...notwithstanding, if in fact my post lacks certain specific info or clarity, I am going to try to expand upon it a bit below, hopefully to post enough info to cover whatever questions that I think may arise from the post. If the info isn't sufficient even then, Ill be happy to try to fix that.

At some point in early February, a LSP Trooper issued a ticket with a court date of 04-03-2012, which seemed a bit odd at that point considering the length of time between the citation and the court date. The ticket was issued very close to the line of demarcation between two parishes (counties), and the trooper assigned the summons/citation to "Parish A" despite the fact that the ticket, as well as the point of the application of radar, was in the bordering "Parish B". Not only were the parishes different, the judicial districts were different, also (most judicial districts here seem to be composed of three or so parishes). So, the citation was issued in "Parish A" which was part of "Judicial District A", and it seemed likely that the offense was actually noted in "Parish B", and in "Judicial District B".

The trooper's handwriting, coupled with the pressure sensitive duplication process used for tickets, made the vast bulk of the ticket totally illegible, although some fields, taken in context, could be deciphered somewhat, but with no sense of certainty. Likely due to that, the trooper wrote over the "court date" and "[court] phone number" fields in the duplicate ticket (offender's dupe copy) to assure that the court date was dark and legible, as well as the phone number for ticket info in that parish/district. Even so, the date could not with absolute certainty be deciphered, and in fact the date appeared to be 4/8/2012.

At a point in late March, a quick glance at a calender revealed that this was not in fact the court date - April 8, 2012, was on a Sunday. The only other date that seemed to be a possibility was April 3, 2012, and the third did in fact turn out to be a valid court date in that parish. In fact, another ticket issued by that trooper to another driver a few days later also showed what was surely a court date of

Questions with the actual site of citation, which was issued in "Parish A" as part of "Judicial District A" but was almost surely located in "Parish B" and as a part of "Judicial District B", caused the offender to wonder if in fact this had something to do with there being no "paperwork" on the court date, and that was the reason that the offender appeared, and didn't simply pay the ticket earlier.

At any rate, in a nutshell (and as originally stated above), if a individual is cited for a traffic offense in Louisiana (speeding, with the driver's license NOT secured as bond by the trooper), and the trooper summons the offender at a date a full two months in advance of the alleged offense date, then what happens to the citation if it doesn't get turned in to the DA's office by the court date?

Thanks in advance, and if I can clarify anything, then please, by all means, just fire away with any questions.

 

[startedone]

The trooper does not "summon you"...you agree to appear ... read your ticket again. Its a notice & agreement to appear.

You should appear. You may have to wait until your name is called or until the judge says "anyone else not called" unless you can speak to a bailiff or DA if they want to be helpful....I would just wait myself.

 

[AmosMoses]

Gotcha. Thanks.

First part - summons, agreement, whatever. The error is of course mine...I am not very well versed in the proper terminology. I simply read and borrowed the glaring red "SUMMONS" term that was embossed at the top of the black type ticket. directly under the black inked "Department of Safety and Corrections Office of State Police". I assume that because the ticket is about 11 or so inches long by 4 or 5 inches wide, all in black ink, with only three red inked terms on it - the ticket number, twice, and vertical. on the rightmost side of the ticket , bottom and top, and the all caps word "SUMMONS", in standard horizontal type and in that glaring red that it stuck in my mind and I simply used the wrong word. I sorta assumed that they would know what it was and would name it accordingly, but again, the error is admittedly mine. But of course, it's not surprising, I guess, because if I knew all the right terminology, process, and procedure, I wouldn't be asking about it here!

The wording directly under the signature line does say that I "promise to appear", but just before that, oddly enough, it says "'I understand the terms and conditions of this summons". Either way, please excuse the errata in terms as mine, and I'll try to straighten up my screw-ups as I am pointed to them.

Next, even more glaring and more stupid on my part, the fist screw up I did in posting the question, without including the damned question, led to even more confusion. When I was pointed to that first huge bumble, I poked around, found, copied and quickly pasted what I thought was my original post, chuckling with pleasure with my obvious big save, and now, I see it's not entirely what I intended to post. Damn I feel stupid now. I mean, there's no shame in asking most any question, really, depending on one's own ignorance of any particular subject, but it takes a real mental giant to fail to even ask a question first, and then, in "correcting" that bit of dumbassery, to slide in some chopped up half-assed version of what shoulda been asked before! As long as the post was, it shoulda been a helluva lot longer...and my cut and paste to pull it out as it got long, with a promise of getting much longer, to finish it in Notepad to prevent an accidental loss actually wound up screwing me up even more than I was trying to save myself from.

Anyway, as I somehow managed to exclude from my original post, (don't ask me how or what I did now for sure), the offender did in fact appear, wasn't named on the docket, wasn't "called up", and wound up hours later sitting there along with a couple other people appearing for tickets by the same trooper. The offender asked personnel if in fact he was on the docket, was told "no" after a bit, and when told the actual issue, court personnel said that "the trooper must not have turned in the paperwork yet" (which seemed true being that the others still there were for the same trooper's tickets), and that they would "look into it and see what was what". Almost an hour later, they were still waiting, and the offender left.

And I'm curious....

As fun as it will surely be for ya'll now, please, PLEASE try to figure out what I am asking if you can, and don't rip my ass just for fun (until you answer me as best you can...then, let 'er rip, my treat!). If nothing else, this is probably one of the longest, if not the longest, non-sensical and chopped up post here.

Sorry about that....

Thanks...

 

[HighwayMan]

startedone usually has no clue.

It says "summons" on it because that's what it is - a summons to appear.

 

[HighwayMan]

...trooper summons the offender at a court date a full two months in advance of the alleged offense date...

Are you saying that the court date on the summons is prior to the date of the (alleged) offense?