Case Study: One Client's Day in Court

Circumstances:

A small percent of our clients do not get their tickets dismissed with our Trial by Written Declaration service. In this case, we ask our clients to call us as soon as they get their results.The court will allow you to have a new trial (known as a Trial De Novo), but a written request must be received by the court within 20 calendar days of the court's decision. If notified by our clients, we will process the necessary documents for a new trial on our client's behalf.

The Trial De Novo (or 'all things new') is always in person, in court. We are strictly a professional filing agency, not a law firm so we do not offer representation for our clients in court.

Our client Marvin L. unfortunately had this occur with his ticket. After we processed the Trial De Novo, the court approved the request and Marvin L. received a notice of the trial date and time.

Marvin's Observations the Day of Court

The beauty of most “Trial De Novo” cases is that clients are not crammed into a huge court room full of ticket offenders.  In Marvin's case, there were only three cases total.  He also observed that for those three cases, all three officers showed up. 

Marvin immediately noticed that his judge appeared to be at least 10 years younger than Marvin. The judge had a Norwegian name.  The officer that had issued his ticket showed up for the court date. Both the officer and Marvin L. wore a suit, with a tie, the officer was very clean-cut, with no tattoos or earrings and was a nice guy, but very young.
 
The first offender poorly presented his case. This offender was cited for hitchhiking on the freeway next to his truck, due to his big rig breaking down.  He even presented evidence of being towed, but still lost the case.  Technically he was hitchhiking and Marvin thought that maybe he was "in big trouble with a tough judge" as he puts it. The third offender left due to the officer showing up in court.

When Marvin's case was called, both the officer and Marvin were sworn in. The judge asked the officer to present his case.  The officer read his entire written testimony (which Marvin had picked up a couple of days prior to his hearing). 

According to Marvin, when the officer finished presenting his case, the judge asked him, “Do you have any other evidence?”  The officer said no.

With Trial De Novo cases, we recommend that clients go to the courthouse a few days early to get a copy of the officer’s written declaration because it gives clients the advantage of knowing beforehand what the arguments will be against them.  But the beauty is that officers are never allowed to read our clients' written declaration.

Resolution: 

To Marvin's surprise, he won his case. As he states, "amazingly I won due to sheer luck and a technicality. The judge said the officer failed to identify me in court when he presented his case against me."
 
Here is what happened. After the officer presented his case, the judge asked Marvin if he had any questions for the officer.  Marvin replied that "No" he did not have any questions for the officer and that he would like to move on to making his statement.  The Judge said, “You don’t have to make a statement you can choose to remain silent. Do you still want to make a statement?” Marvin said "Yes". 

The Judge then said to Marvin, “are you sure? I [the judge] said you can choose to remain silent?” Marvin replied “yes” again while looking directly at the Judge and the Judge shook his head from side-to-side a little, as if to give Marvin a heads-up to remain silent. So Marvin said, "No, I would like to remain silent". 

The Judge immediately said to the courtroom, "CASE DISMISSED due to the officer not identifying the subject [Marvin] in presenting his case.” 
 
As Marvin was conveying his story to us, he concluded, "the officer and I talked as we walked out and riding the elevator together.  The officer and I were very friendly, he said, “boy that worked out well for you.”  I told him I was hoping he wouldn’t show, but he said they pay him too well not to have shown up.   I told him my case was basically the way I stated it in my written declaration.  He told me they are not allowed to see the written declarations.  I think this is a big advantage for the driver.  I then asked him how often they have to have their speedometers calibrated and he said every 3 months.  I told him in my case with him, it had been 5 months." This was the argument Marvin was going to make.

For more information on how Ticket Busters of California can help to beat your speeding tickets or fight other traffic tickets, visit TicketBust.com or call us today at 800 850-8038.