Washington State Ticket Discovery Responses

[kyle99]

My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: Washington
Hi guys and gals! I got a ticket on 4/21 from a park ranger, sent in a contested hearing, and got a notice to appear in court on May 29th. I filed a discovery request on May 10th, well within the 15 day window. I got my discovery contents in the mail today (5/24) and it was dated 5/23. Doesn't discovery have to be sent within 7 days of the trial? Here's the discovery:

Cover Letter
Infraction
Ranger's Statement

Anything to go on? Does the discovery request not being sent within 7 days of trial give me anything to lean on? Thanks a ton guys!

[BrendanjKeegan]

Well, you would have had this beat if you didn't admit to speeding. The game is over in Spokane District Court. I'd hope there is a Prosecutor there to ask for an amended charge. Otherwise, you're SOL.

[kyle99]

Well, you would have had this beat if you didn't admit to speeding. The game is over in Spokane District Court. I'd hope there is a Prosecutor there to ask for an amended charge. Otherwise, you're SOL.

Yeah, I've heard Spokane District Court is bad. I still have a deferral, but ideally I'd like to hold onto it.

[BrendanjKeegan]

You would have had this in the bag, but you admitted to speeding. You made the case for yourself. It has nothing to do with the toughness of the court's jurisdiction that you're in. The best thing you can do is hope for an amended charge. Unfortunately, I do hope you learned a lesson about talking to police.

If there's no amended charge, I'd go for deferral. A shame...

If you're still screwed, you can try to move to exclude the statement about what you said to the officer as it was taken out of context, but I would say you have a 20% chance with that.

[kyle99]

You would have had this in the bag, but you admitted to speeding. You made the case for yourself. It has nothing to do with the toughness of the court's jurisdiction that you're in. The best thing you can do is hope for an amended charge. Unfortunately, I do hope you learned a lesson about talking to police.

If there's no amended charge, I'd go for deferral. A shame...

If you're still screwed, you can try to move to exclude the statement about what you said to the officer as it was taken out of context, but I would say you have a 20% chance with that.

If it makes any difference, when he asks how fast I was going, I said "I'm not sure, maybe 35?" Can that statement be used as evidence?

[BrendanjKeegan]

The problem there is that you still admitted to speeding. You knew that the speed limit was posted at 25 and you admitted that you thought you were going 35. If I were playing judge, I would take that as an admission to the offense.

The shame in all of this is that the officer failed to list the serial number of the device, and the serial number of the tuning forks. He only listed it as a Falcon HR. I'm fairly certain that there are more than 1000 Falcon HR devices out there in the world today, each with their own set of tuning forks. No two tuning forks can be interchanged between SMDs. The state must prove that the CORRECT tuning forks were used, and they simply cannot do this without subpoenaing the officer and having him give live testimony, which they won't do over a simple speeding ticket.

You also were not given the bottom of the page, therefore, not given the officer's subscription, making this document inadmiss--

Actually scratch that. That could be your out...

"Your honor, I move to suppress the officer's report as it is not signed under penalty of perjury and therefore does not meet the requirements to be used in this proceeding under RCW 9A.72.085. Subsequently, I move to dismiss due to lack of evidence."

If the prosecutor says something to the effect that it was not copied correctly, you need to rebut with the following:
"Your honor, according to IRLJ 3.1(b), if the prosecuting authority ... fails to provide any portion of the discovery prior to the day of the hearing, the portion of discovery not provided shall be suppressed. Because of this, the legal subscription (if one even exists as I have yet to see one) MUST be suppressed because it has not been provided to me prior to the day of this hearing. Without that subscription, the document is inadmissible for this proceeding under RCW 9A.72.085 and I object to it being offered into evidence."

You will then let the judge rule on that. If they say granted, "Your honor, I move to dismiss due to lack of evidence."

With that you MAY have something. However, the part that I omitted says "...without reasonable excuse or justification..." If the prosecuctor is a quick thinker on his feet, he may have a reasonable excuse. You should be ready to argue that this excuse is not reasonable as the prosecuting authority should know that it has a duty to turn over all evidence that will be introduced at the hearing - not just bits and pieces of the evidence they wish to introduce. I might add something to the effect that this is a slippery slope and if this one slides, then who is to say that the next one isn't more than half of the report? Pretty soon discovery won't even be allowed and we'll go right back to kangaroo traffic court. Heck, I might even throw in something about the rule of best evidence...

Good luck.