Re: Appeal Wa Speeding Ticket
Judges want to hear the facts of why you (the OP) are not guilty, not some cryptic legalese that is likely not applicable. I've been in court where the judge himself vetted the officers statement to ensure that the device was calibrated and the officer stated such in his report.
Re: Appeal Wa Speeding Ticket
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MaltbyMark
Judges want to hear the facts of why you (the OP) are not guilty, not some cryptic legalese that is likely not applicable. I've been in court where the judge himself vetted the officers statement to ensure that the device was calibrated and the officer stated such in his report.
In appeal, you bet they want to hear some "cryptic legalese".
Re: Appeal Wa Speeding Ticket
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searcher99
I can offer some thoughts, but have no experience with appeals and cannot assess your chances. If you haven’t already, you would definitely want to read the entire Washington State
Rules for Appeal of Decisions of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction. I know it will involve some expense including the filing fee and cost to order a transcript. Also it will cost you time to write and research. The whole process would best be viewed as an adventure and learning experience, and if you choose to proceed I would encourage you to share on this forum regardless of outcome.
Yes, it appears that the process is designed to defeat you, even if you prevail and recover court costs, you still lose.
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The missing subsection argument has been successful in some courts, although I’m inclined to think not as much in recent years. The current
SECTOR electronic ticketing system probably doesn’t even allow a subsection to be entered (every speeding ticket I’ve seen lately lacks a subsection). For a recent example of this argument not succeeding, you might want to read
this previous post from a thread last December.
Yes, it appears certain prosecutor type judges have adopted this flawed reasoning to allow them to violate Infraction Rules of Limited Jurisdiction 2.1(b)(4) as if it doesn't even exist. I would imagine that the appeals court may not consider the violation of Infraction Court Rules as being a valid enough factor to overturn.
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However the poster in the above linked thread did win based on the officer not stating personal knowledge of device testing. That’s where I think you might have shot yourself in the foot by subpoenaing the officer, because your strongest defense probably had to do with him not checking the moving radar patrol speed against his speedometer.
The officer did not once state that he tested the device before and after shift. The judge acted like an aggressive prosecutor and made it obvious that no matter what, the state was not going to lose. The court was surprised at my attack and the judge told me that no one ever submits motions in his court. It seemed as if the judge had never held a real hearing in his court room, he seemed somewhat unfamiliar with he process. He seemed more familiar with the poor citizens grovelling at his feet with 0 defense and his "infraction committed" rubber stamp.
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Based on what you described about how the judged behaved on that issue, I’m guessing the officer’s sworn written statement lacked that required evidence. In the officer’s absence, his written statement is the only evidence available and if insufficient (not containing all required elements) the judge would have been forced to dismiss. Instead the judge was able to coax that necessary element from the officer, and also I’m pretty sure judges in general are more reluctant to dismiss whenever the officer is present.
The officer is a newbie rookie, he made no statement on the NOI and brought in an affidavit that I was not aware of and never got to see. Even the affidavit made no mention of testing the SMD , speedometer or SMD speed against the speedometer, The patrol speed was not known. I motioned to dismiss on that because it was missing just about all elements. It happened fast when the judge deliberately extracted the missing elements, too fast for me to object to the judge acting as an agent of the state by attempting to re-open the states case to pull such a nasty move.
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Also based on your description, it would appear that you never served a discovery request on the prosecutor, and probably based your defense only on the notice of infraction and cross examination of the officer. Your entire defense should have been based on the written statement.
Yes, I asked for a good amount of discovery, I even served the sheriffs dept and got just about nothing. The officer brought only a 4 line affidavit into court, nothing else. And i did ask for any affidavits, and never received any. My scope was very wide and I missed this mark, I should have attacked this, I know.
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Anyway you did object to the officer’s apparent failure to conduct a patrol speed/speedometer check, and I’m inclined to believe denial of that objection could quite possibly be your best chance for winning an appeal. A more correct initial motion should have been to exclude or suppress the evidence of speed, followed by a motion to dismiss due to lack of evidence--but I’m not sure that technicality would hurt you much since what’s most important is that you objected. Probably in an appeal argument you would want to try to illustrate how the judge was leading the witness prior to denying your objection.
I did a lot more than that, I pushed the hearing to over an hour and a half long. I grilled and tested the officer on Visual Speed Estimation from a moving vehicle for the purpose of excluding his so called observation... When I concluded the test, the officer was off by over 38mph, my speed would have been -.8 mph, driving backwards? The prosecutor/judge did not care or simply could not comprehend.
This is "Boss Hog" territory, where good ole boy attorneys figured out a way to win every time, they are elected as Judges... Many attorneys will not come near this place, because they know how things work out here... It's tough.
Re: Appeal Wa Speeding Ticket
I am getting this message for my multi quote responses...
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Redirecting...
Thank you for your posting! Your post will be not be visible until a moderator has approved it for posting. You will now be taken back to the forum. If you opted to post a poll, you will now be allowed to do so.
I have posted responses to searcher and flyingron, but my response posts have been routed through moderators for review, this has been happening since early this morning when I tired to post a lengthy response to flyingrons last post.
Sorry you can't see my responses yet, I guess you may never actually see them? Thanks for the replies, keep em coming. You can message me with any questions or I will message you my responses. Any examples of appeal briefs for such a situation would be helpful.
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zeljo
Also from Leach: "[1] In holding that a charging document which omits a statutory element of the crime charged violates a defendant's constitutional rights, the court in Holt did not distinguish between misdemeanors and felonies, nor between complaints and citations. In applying the Holt rule, there is no logical reason to distinguish between complaints and citations or felonies and misdemeanors. If a misdemeanor citation or complaint omits a statutory element of the charged offense, the document is constitutionally defective for failure to state an offense and is subject to dismissal. "
Yes, I based my argument on this for application. The Judge did not seem to grasp this concept, and appeared to completely ignore irlj2.1 b4 all together.
A constitutional right to due process does not override this particular judges idea of judicial discretion and prosecutorial behavior.
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searcher99
I can offer some thoughts, but have no experience with appeals and cannot assess your chances. If you haven’t already, you would definitely want to read the entire Washington State
Rules for Appeal of Decisions of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction. I know it will involve some expense including the filing fee and cost to order a transcript. Also it will cost you time to write and research. The whole process would best be viewed as an adventure and learning experience, and if you choose to proceed I would encourage you to share on this forum regardless of outcome.
So far , this looks about right.
RALJ RULE 2.2 (d)(3)
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(3) manifest error affecting a constitutional right. A party may present a ground
for affirming a decision of a court of limited jurisdiction that was not presented to that court if the record
has been sufficiently developed to fairly consider the ground. A party may raise a claim of error that was
not raised by the party in the court of limited jurisdiction if another party on the same side of the case
raised the claim of error in that court.
Manifest constitutional error refers to an error made by the trial court which has an identifiably negative impact on the trial to such a degree that the constitutional rights of a party are compromised. These types of errors can be reviewed by a court of appeals even if the appellant did not object at trial.
Re: Appeal Wa Speeding Ticket
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Quoting
searcher99
I can offer some thoughts, but have no experience with appeals and cannot assess your chances. If you haven’t already, you would definitely want to read the entire Washington State
Rules for Appeal of Decisions of Courts of Limited Jurisdiction. I know it will involve some expense including the filing fee and cost to order a transcript. Also it will cost you time to write and research. The whole process would best be viewed as an adventure and learning experience, and if you choose to proceed I would encourage you to share on this forum regardless of outcome.
So far , this looks about right.
RALJ RULE 2.2 (d)(3)
(3) manifest error affecting a constitutional right. A party may present a ground
for affirming a decision of a court of limited jurisdiction that was not presented to that court if the record
has been sufficiently developed to fairly consider the ground. A party may raise a claim of error that was
not raised by the party in the court of limited jurisdiction if another party on the same side of the case
raised the claim of error in that court.
Manifest constitutional error refers to an error made by the trial court which has an identifiably negative impact on the trial to such a degree that the constitutional rights of a party are compromised. These types of errors can be reviewed by a court of appeals even if the appellant did not object at trial.