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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
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    4

    Default Officer's Statement is a "Fill in the Blanks" Form

    My question involves a traffic ticket from the state of: Washington

    Hey folks, I have an upcoming court date for a speeding ticket and have already received my discovery, thanks to the knowledgeable people on this forum.

    The Officers report seems to be a formatted letter with no details of the event, example: I observed the defendant X approaching receding from my location. The defendant appeared to be in excess of the posted speed limit of 60 M.P.H. I obtained a reading of 74 & 74 M.P.H on the defendants vehicle....

    It goes on to say the laser SMD accuracy was checked by the Trooper before and after the stop but there are no details.

    It says he had me at a distance of almost 800 feet (different from actual ticket, btw) on a congested I5 freeway. Thats more than 2 1/2 football fields straight line distance yet he was able to pick me out. This was during the Canadian fires we had which also had smoke everywhere around here. I'm not denying I wasn't going above the posted speed limit but the reality is if I tried not to go with the flow of traffic I probably would of gotten rear ended.

    Last blurb says: The defendant had no proof of liability insurance or only had an expired card. Huh? He never asked for it! The traffic stop was literally "you know how fast you were going? license and registration. Here's your ticket. There were no pleasantries exchanged at all or given an opportunity to say anything.

    I went to go check on the SMD book at the courthouse, it was missing my laser tag no. in the book but it also seemed like there were missing pages. I previously went to observe a court case and saw a lawyer successfully beat a speeding ticket on the grounds of the Laser tag no. not being in the book. He had the book with him and just showed the judge the book with the missing pages. Unfortunately though, there is an online laser tag no. check and my serial no shows the dates of certification to be accurate.

    Should I just do like the lawyer and have the book with the missing pages present or will they trump me and produce the certification paperwork at trial? It seems like the court process is a pretty speedy setup with the judge calling the persons name, telling them if they want to proceed with the trial, if yes then he takes a minute to read the Officers statement and proceeds. No prosecutor was in attendance but what seemed like a court clerk next to the judge.

    The people there fighting their cases were just aloof and not prepared on any way to fight their case but just wanted to tell the judge their side of the story but the judge was pretty straight forward with the law " you sped? Yeah, then guilty. Next! Thats until the lawyer used the certification defense. I want to be prepared.

    If there are any defense points I can use then please let me know. Thanks.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    Default Re: Officer's Statement is a "Fill in the Blanks" Form

    Boilerplate forms help ensure that necessary information is provided in the affidavit. There is no reason why they cannot or should not be used. But as you can probably see from some other threads in this forum, sometimes those forms fail to cue officers to include necessary information and leave an opportunity for the defense.

    The affidavit needs to be sufficient. It doesn't need to be made in excruciating detail. You can try to argue to the court that the affidavit does not make sufficiently clear when the SMD was measured; no promise that you'll succeed.

    You are not likely to get anywhere by arguing that the officer who clocked your car couldn't distinguish it from the cars around you. If you were going faster than the others, there's the distinction -- and measuring the wrong car's speed would mean that the officer measured your speed as lower than it actually was. If you weren't, then your speed was the same as anybody else's.

    If the SMD's certification is on file with the court, you won't get anywhere arguing that it is not.

    If you were not ticketed over your proof of insurance, then that's just a distraction.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
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    4

    Default Re: Officer's Statement is a "Fill in the Blanks" Form

    Thanks Mr. Knowitall, good reply. What rubs me the wrong way about these Police boilerplate forms (never heard that term before, btw) is that the form, probably filled out by some clerk, can go from a simple speeding ticket to time in jail if for some reason you dont pay, have a warrant, etc. from this incident. I guess what I'm saying is that the police really dont give a crap about your outcome to give you ten seconds of personal attention as long as they can keep churning out those tickets., that can ultimately ruin a life down the line.

    I've seen other posted Officer statements here that are very detailed and seem like the officer has given some actual work into the court process. I can respect the the system over something like that. But just taking it from an automated court system leaves a bad taste in your mouth at how the Gov. can ultimately keep treating us as sheep and get away with anything. (okay, my venting over).

    So as long as they have the same boilerplate info filled in on all the requests for discovery from Joe Public the court and Officer is covered without any opportunity for us to fight a case? The judge will just assume it was done according to the regs? How do we defend against a system set up like this? Personally, I could of just paid the damn fine and been on my merry way but I am a disabled vet with nothing better to do and wanted to see how all my years of fighting for our "rights" has paid off when using due process as a civilian. An eye opener for sure.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Posts
    886

    Default Re: Officer's Statement is a "Fill in the Blanks" Form

    Quote Quoting balboa850
    View Post
    It goes on to say the laser SMD accuracy was checked by the Trooper before and after the stop but there are no details.
    If there truly are no details of individual tests and results anywhere in the affidavit, you can move to suppress or exclude evidence of speed due to lack of sufficient foundation per ER 901.

    Quote Quoting balboa850
    View Post
    If there are any defense points I can use then please let me know. Thanks.
    If you want help reviewing discovery, upload digital photos or scans (with your personal id and citation number redacted) to any free image hosting site and link them here in your thread.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
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    152

    Default Re: Officer's Statement is a "Fill in the Blanks" Form

    Post the discovery here, as searcher recommends. Listing two measurements of speed could be used to dismiss it - it worked for others. The affidavit (being boilerplate) states that a single measurement was made, but two values are provided. The fact that both speeds are the same could make it harder to use it for dismissal.

    Anyway - you might as well look at the boilerplate from the perspective of taking advantage of it, and accept that this is how the system works. AFAIK the officers fill out these boilerplates themselves. But a separate question is - how many officers really test their SMDs at the beginning and the end of their shift, as they say in the affidavits? I bet that very few do so. But on the other hand pretty much all of us who fight the speeding tickets were actually speeding, and are looking for a technicality to get out of the ticket. And Washington seems to be a state where getting off on a technicality appears easier, because the officers can submit an affidavit in lieu of showing up.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    4

    Default Re: Officer's Statement is a "Fill in the Blanks" Form

    Update: ticket dismissed!

    -The SMD book did not have the device certificate. Honestly though, the judge was pretty lenient on other cases where no one was prepared at all. Only speeding ticket he didn't dismiss was an older lady who admitted to speeding but said she did it because she was behind a semi truck and was scared.

    Thanks to everyone who contributed to the questions, makes life easier for us laypeople.

    Here's how it went down for me, hopefully it answers questions you might have:

    -I requested discovery per sticky on this forum.
    -discovery had Lidar tag number but also specified on discovery cover sheet that certificates are not sent but can be viewed online.
    -online smd page had my lidar device that was within time frame but unable to view certificate. Huh?
    -went to couthouse to view SMD book, it was missing my device page numbers but honestly they just give you the book and really easy to tear them out if you wanted to.
    -I did a ton of googling here to have my motions I would use in court.
    -court date, got there early to see if they updated SMD book, nope!
    -clerk just gave me SMD book and said return it when done.
    -courtroom was going through a bunch of criminal arraignments first, then prosecutor went through a bunch of warrants with judge, then traffic people came last. We waited about 1 1/2 hours. Clerk in court gave everyone a copy of their discovery that the judge will use to see your case. Mine had the same stuff I got in the mail. I was the only one their that seemed prepared beforehand with mailed discovery material though.
    -judge called us one by one, no one prepared but he was very lenient and was dismissing stuff left and right. Kinda pissed that it seemed too easy for everyone else.
    -my turn, said if I wanted deferral, I said no and I said I have preliminary motion. Judge said lets hear them. (no swearing in and he did not look at the officers report when I said that).
    -asked to suppress lidar reading based on no SMD certificate on file, showed him the missing page and he said okay, ticket dismissed. Took all of under 5 minutes.

    I had my notes ready with motions to use. The Cop used a form letter that covered testing the device before and after and the 3 tests performed. It would of been hard to defend if the court really wanted to fight it but it seemed like they were "heh" about really trying to get guilty verdicts. My luck I guess.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    98,846

    Default Re: Officer's Statement is a "Fill in the Blanks" Form

    Thanks for the update.

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