
Quoting
fightingthepower
The arraignment was not my own request, but the system in place in LA traffic court.
When you submit a written plea and submit the bail amount along with it, The case shall thereupon be set for arraignment and trial on the same date, unless the defendant requests separate arraignment. This is not an L A Traffic court provision but one that is provided and described under Vehicle Code section 40519 -Titled: Trial Scheduling; Written Not Guilty Plea

Quoting
fightingthepower
Not being a lawyer, I was not fully aware of the implications.
Ignorance of the law is not a valid excuse. You opted to go it alone. And as such, you accepted responsibility for your own actions (or lack thereof).

Quoting
fightingthepower
As I have stated before, there are several details of this case that I have not fully explained because they are not important to my appeal.
And yet as matters stand right now, you have very little grounds for an appeal.

Quoting
fightingthepower
The documents that I wanted to subpoena would have improved my case tremendously - and that is why I naively requested them of the court.
You claim to have gone into court with the expectation that you could subpoena documents, you were given a waiver which included a statement of right, one of which did not conform to what you claim you knew.
(1) You could have asked for an explanation from the court about any of the provisions which you've just read (and was confused by) at the time, but you didn't.
(2) Even if you did ask, and even if the court was able to clarify the matter to you, you were already scheduled for trial 30 minutes from that point. And while a short recess might have been in order had you had access to such documents, there were no documents for you to review because there was no subpoena.
(3) Even if the form had clearly stated that you can subpoena documents, you were already in receipt of a document informing you of your arraignment and trial will be held on the same date, so how would the power of a subpoena help you at that point when in reality:
(a) the officer was likely in court already, and
(b) a subpoena was not going to get issued by the court knowing that your trial is within 30 minutes...
(4) You had other options which you could have utilized to obtain whatever documents you wished to present in your defense, like Discovery and/or a Public Records Act request... etc... But you did not explore any of those options.
(5) There is no connection between other citations issued by the officer and the one he issued to you even if he spent his entire career issuing citations at that corner -as long as it can be shown that the one citation which was issued to you was based on alleged facts that would lead a reasonable person to assume a violation of law had occurred.

Quoting
fightingthepower
The documents that I wanted to subpoena would have improved my case tremendously - and that is why I naively requested them of the court.
Again, the only requirement that the officer needed to prove in your case was whether you had violated the provisions of the code which he cited you for. Matters which were already decided under different venue and unless they can show that he would lie about reasons why he issued those citations, are not for you to retry and reevaluate.

Quoting
fightingthepower
All I am looking for is a fair trial - one where I have the documents there to improve my case.
You already got a fair trial!

Quoting
fightingthepower
one where I have the documents there to improve my case.
Hindsight is 20:20. And if we were all allowed to redo each of our cases based on what documents we should have had, no case would ever be closed and no conviction would ever be final!

Quoting
fightingthepower
But what happened is not why the officer said happened.
And how would other citations prove what he said was untrue or what you said was true?
Fact is "witness credibility" is not a matter for the appellate to revisit. It is totally and wholly up to the trier of fact to decide. And if your judge decided that the officer's testimony weighed more than yours, then welcome to the club. You will not prevail in this case and not on this basis!

Quoting
fightingthepower
All I want is to be able to present a proper case.
And you had that opportunity and you were not successful! You don't get a "do-over"! None of us did!
An appeal is not a procedure by which we get to express our dismay about issues of credibility or missed opportunities or our dissatisfaction with the outcome. An appeal is a process by which a review of the case is conducted to ascertain whether errors of questions of law and procedure occurred and whether those errors contributed to the final outcome of the case.
The issue you're bringing here is based upon your inability to subpoena records which regardless of what that form said, you could not and would not have been able to subpoena and even if you did, they would have had zero impact on the outcome of your case!

Quoting
fightingthepower
I would like to include a photo of the TR-16 form, but I do not have permission for attachments. It is the request for trial form (Not Guilty) for the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. It's rights advisement section is written exactly as I have in my initial email. And it sets the arraignment and trial at the same time. I did not have a choice in this.
You have to upload the image to a web-hosting site (photobucket.com or imageshack.com) and then post the link that is provided to you by that host site.
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But, and as is always the case, you are free to appeal and find out the potential for a new trial in your case!