Parking Tickets: Ticket Dismissal Due to Noncompliance With Statute

My question involves a traffic citation from the state of: MA

My pleading are below. The Parking Officer wrote that although they believed a violation occurred , they were dismissing the case anyway (chickens lol). So it pays to argue I guess.

PLEADINGS OF DEFENDANT – BY MAIL PLEADING

INTRODUCTION

Defendant was in control of the noticed vehicle for the time period relating to these pleadings. Defendant also owns the vehicle to which the notice was attached.

These pleadings will include:
Notice defects that make the notice meaningless
Lack of standing issues regarding the notice

NOTICE DEFECTS RENDERING NOTICE AS INVALID & NONENFORCEABLE

1) There is no name of the officer on the notice. This is a mandatory requirement under Section 20A of Chapter 90 (aka Section 20A) of the Statues of the Commonwealth which states “Said notice .. shall contain..the NAME and badge number of the officer and his division..”.

The name requirement is a mandatory one Lemaine v. Boston, 27 Mass.App.Ct 1173. The word “SHALL” in this statue is mandatory in nature regarding the name requirement and other requirements regarding the information to be entered onto the ticket. Without the name of the officer, the Defendant is unable to neither prepare a proper defense nor summon the officer to a hearing.

In truth, the Defendant does not know if the person who issued the notice is an officer nor is able to conduct any type investigation relating to any of the alleged facts and legal conclusions contained within the complaint. While discovery is not available under the administrative hearing procedures this does not mean that the Defendant is prohibited from conducting an investigation regarding the alleged facts noted on the complaint. An investigation would have included examining the person who issued the notice and this type of examination cannot be performed without it being properly done so in pre-hearing activities of performing Freedom of Information Act requests, examining court records, performing interviews, etc.

The notice’s “name of officer” section has some scribbling upon it; it is not a name and it only consists of 2 or 3 characters. The Defendant has performed an investigation and has found no officer in the Boston police department who has a name that would consist of 2 or 3 characters. The Defendant cannot confirm that the person who issued the notice is an actual police officer nor can the Defendant determine the identity of the person who wrote the notice.

The word “name” is distinct from the word “signature”. “Name is defined as "The title by which any person or thing is known or designated..” Baez v. Disabled Americans , 119F Supp. 490, Dist. Court, SD New York 1954. The purpose of a name is to identify the individual. The notice given to the Defendant does not include the “name” of the individual as it does not communicate the title of the person to the reader. None of the characters can be read or distinguished to be any particular character of our alphabet.

And “badge numbers” are interdepartmental identification codes that are not meant to identify a specific officer. According to the Boston Police Department, both the badge and name are required to identify a police officer; the Defendant contacted the Boston Police Department and the Department required BOTH the badge number AND name to identify any officer. There is no statue that requires badge numbers to be an identification mechanism for an individual officer nor are they.

It is impossible for the Defendant to correctly identify the person who issued the notice and therefore cannot prepare a proper defense due to this notice deficiency. This deficiency is a clearly mandatory requirement for the notice; hence the notice is not a valid notice under Massachusetts’s law. The notice should not be allowed into evidence & without such evidence the commonwealth has no basis for a cause of action against the Defendant and the case should be dismissed. Additionally, the notice can be considered violative of the United States Constitution 14th Amendment in respect to due process considerations as an unknown person is making a claim against the Defendant as well as other reasons; the issuer is a person that the Defendant cannot confront in an open hearing as the required information is missing to insure the attendance, as required or allowed under Massachusett’s law an administrative procedures.

It must be noted that the Defendant and the person who issued the notice never met or saw each other. The notice was simply left upon the Defendant’s vehicle.

2) There is no color of the vehicle noted on the notice. This is again, a mandatory requirement of Section 20A. The annotation on the notice regarding the color of the vehicle is the character “8”. “8” is not a color, it is a number. The statue specifically states “COLOR”. The Defendant is unsure what the character “8” means but since the statue requires an actual color to be listed then the Defendant would state that any additional inquires are not needed and such arguments would be without merit. The statute requires a color and the notice does not contain a color. “8” does not correspond to any wavenumber nor other scientific identification of color nor does the “8” contain any units so the Defendant would state that the number “8” is not a color. “8” is not known in our language as being a color in any dictionary as well. Therefore, since the notice is missing this mandatory information the notice should not be introduced into evidence and the case should be dismissed.

3) There is no statute listed on the notice that would inform the Defendant as to the charge against him. This is a mandatory requirement of a notice under Section 20A. Section 20A states “..the specific violation charged..”. This is a requirement of a statutory reference requirement. The notice states “38” as the statutory or code reference; however, there is no such statue or ordinance known as simply “38”. Is the Defendant supposed to prepare a defense for every mention of the numeral “38” that is contained within the myriad of about 25,000 laws and regulations that the Defendant is governed under? This would be crazy. It is quite clear that there is no violation specifically plead on the notice.

The notice does not provide the Defendant with a properly plead cause of action; therefore, the notice should not be entered into evidence. The hearing officer(s) should make a finding of not guilty or dismissal.

CONCLUSION REGARDING DEFECTS OF NOTICE

Any of the defects noticed are grounds for a finding of not guilty. Similar arguments could be made for the “vehicle make” which shows NISS (which is not a make of any vehicle) on the notice as well. The notice, if uncontested, is prima facia evidence of the violation. But prior to giving the notice this consideration one must examine if the notice itself conforms to the statutory requirements. If mandatory requirements are not met by the Plaintiff then the Plaintiff’s notice is not longer a notice under Section 20A but becomes irrelevant in respect to Plaintiff’s case. It is clear that the person who issued the notice was either unaware of the requirements of the notice, lazy, not a police officer as required, or for some other unknown reason issued out an invalid notice. The finding of the hearing officer(s) should be either a dismissal or a not guilty decision.

LACK OF STANDING BY THE PLAINTIFF

The Defendant will make the assumption for this argument that the notice of the Plaintiff is regarding a parking violation (even though the Defendant disputes this fact due to the lack of any statutory notice on the notice as well as other defects).

Parking violations are civil offenses in Massachusetts “…civil parking citation...” Gillespie v. City of Northhampton, SJC-10791, Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusett.

The notice does not specify or plead any facts that the Plaintiff has been injured. Being an injured party is a requirement prior to filing of a civil complaint.

Criminal violations do not require an actual injury. For example: a person threatens another person with bodily harm. This is actionable even though no injury actually occurred.

Civil violations are different; an actual injury must occur. For example: a person driving a car misses your car by a millimeter. In this example, no injury occurred so no civil cause of action exists.

In this notice received there are no facts plead that provide the Defendant any reason to think that an injury occurred; in fact, no injury to person or property or any type of loss occurred in this case regarding any alleged actions by the Defendant in respect to the Defendant’s actions.

The burden of establishing legal standing is upon those who claim it. In this case, the Plaintiff cannot provide any set of facts that would support standing of a civil nature against the Defendant

Given that this is a civil matter, not criminal, and no loss, injury, or damage has been plead by the Plaintiff then the proper recourse is to dismiss the notice as having no merit to this case or providing any evidence regarding any civil cause of action.

The notice, given without a proper foundation, is in violation of the United States 14th Amendment in respect to due process considerations as well.

FINAL CONCLUSIONS

The notice received is not a notice under Section 20A of the Massachusetts statues and is therefore not a notice at all. The document has no legal effect upon the Defendant; it is not a verified document as well making its veracity quite uncertain; Defendant believes it to have no value. The case should be either dismissed due to lack of evidence or lacking veracity as required under Section 20A. There are multiple errors on the notice that are not acceptable under Section 20A regarding the issuance of a proper notice; without following the mandatory requirements under Section 20A the notice is void and cannot be considered as evidence. Even though rules of evidence are lax during an administrative hearing the notice received is defective and cannot be used as evidence against the Defendant.

Additionally, the Plaintiff has no legal standing to issue a notice to the Defendant in this case and the case should be dismissed.

The Defendant denies all allegations and any legal conclusions that the Defendant violated any statue or ordinance or any other legal requirement or regulation.

In the interest of justice, the result of the hearing should be either a dismissal or a finding of not guilty.

An exhibit is attached, a copy of the notice, labeled as Defendant’s Exhibit A and is attached to these pleadings.

These pleadings were prepared and filed within the statutory time frame required.