When Contesting Your Traffic Ticket a Good Defense is Not "The Cop Lied"
All those days of taking chances finally caught up with you.
Running late to work one day and going just a little faster than usual, and you got popped for speeding.
You know you were going over the speed limit, but you heard that people get out of traffic tickets every day by contesting them (they do) and you wanted to see if you could get a little piece of that action.
But now that you've got your hearing date you are unsure of what to do.
You decide in the end to use the "the cop is lying" defense and see how that goes.
Before we go any further, we should stop right here.
First, I think it's great that you are contesting your traffic ticket.
It is important that we, as inhabitants of the United States, exercise all the rights and opportunities afforded to us, which includes due process of law (in other words, making the police and prosecutors prove their case against us).
You are doing the right thing by fighting your traffic ticket, and you might even win.
Second, however, is a word of warning on your defense.
Actually, it is a word of prophesy - that defense is not a winner absent some very strong evidence on your side.
Cops are inherently trusted by judges and prosecutors (despite everything you see in the news nearly every day chronicling the circuses that are police departments).
Getting up on the stand and testifying, without anything to back it up, that the police are lying, is not going to get you far.
You need evidence, and strong evidence at that.
Maybe an example might help.
Let's say you are driving around in Seattle and get popped with a Seattle speeding ticket.
The officer says you were going 80 in a 60, but you know there is no way that you were going that fast because your car is incapable of going 80 miles an hour for some reason.
If you bring that evidence in to your Seattle traffic ticket contested hearing and show it you can call the cop a liar (though you would probably just want to take the perspective of the "mistaken" cop - it might save you some traffic infractions later).
Additionally, important with this defense is that you don't testify that you know you were speeding at all (and I am not condoning lying on the stand - maybe just get the evidence in through the cop if possible, or just introduce the document only without talking much about it).
In any event, calling the cops liars is not generally an effective strategy.
The judges inherently believe everything they say (particularly with something as arbitrary as a traffic ticket) and if it comes down to his word against yours, guess who the judge is going to side with.
Your best bet to beating your traffic ticket is to come up with an angle that shows the cop was mistaken or the way he says it happened couldn't have possibly happened.
Running late to work one day and going just a little faster than usual, and you got popped for speeding.
You know you were going over the speed limit, but you heard that people get out of traffic tickets every day by contesting them (they do) and you wanted to see if you could get a little piece of that action.
But now that you've got your hearing date you are unsure of what to do.
You decide in the end to use the "the cop is lying" defense and see how that goes.
Before we go any further, we should stop right here.
First, I think it's great that you are contesting your traffic ticket.
It is important that we, as inhabitants of the United States, exercise all the rights and opportunities afforded to us, which includes due process of law (in other words, making the police and prosecutors prove their case against us).
You are doing the right thing by fighting your traffic ticket, and you might even win.
Second, however, is a word of warning on your defense.
Actually, it is a word of prophesy - that defense is not a winner absent some very strong evidence on your side.
Cops are inherently trusted by judges and prosecutors (despite everything you see in the news nearly every day chronicling the circuses that are police departments).
Getting up on the stand and testifying, without anything to back it up, that the police are lying, is not going to get you far.
You need evidence, and strong evidence at that.
Maybe an example might help.
Let's say you are driving around in Seattle and get popped with a Seattle speeding ticket.
The officer says you were going 80 in a 60, but you know there is no way that you were going that fast because your car is incapable of going 80 miles an hour for some reason.
If you bring that evidence in to your Seattle traffic ticket contested hearing and show it you can call the cop a liar (though you would probably just want to take the perspective of the "mistaken" cop - it might save you some traffic infractions later).
Additionally, important with this defense is that you don't testify that you know you were speeding at all (and I am not condoning lying on the stand - maybe just get the evidence in through the cop if possible, or just introduce the document only without talking much about it).
In any event, calling the cops liars is not generally an effective strategy.
The judges inherently believe everything they say (particularly with something as arbitrary as a traffic ticket) and if it comes down to his word against yours, guess who the judge is going to side with.
Your best bet to beating your traffic ticket is to come up with an angle that shows the cop was mistaken or the way he says it happened couldn't have possibly happened.