Police misconduct or just an officer being a jerk?

For the record, the officer has given my client criminal violations, moving violations and non moving violations.

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Moving violation and traffic court misconceptions

I have many clients who hire me and say, “can you reset my case a bunch of times so the officer won’t show up and my case will be dismissed”.

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Why won’t Hearing Officers admit when they are wrong?

So the moral of this post is that Traffic Hearing Officers, as well as Judges, sometimes don’t want to admit when they are wrong

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Trial results on a fatality case.

Sometimes there really are “accidents”. Not all accidents must lead to someone being charged with a traffic violation.

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Financial Responsibility Suspensions

In my opinion a financial responsibility suspension should be on that list which allows a hardship license so the person can maintain a job and start paying back the injured party.

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Police misconduct or just an officer being a jerk? Moving violation and traffic court misconceptions Why won’t Hearing Officers admit when they are wrong? Trial results on a fatality case. Financial Responsibility Suspensions

Feb
21

Police misconduct or just an officer being a jerk?

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To protect the “jerk” his name will remain anonymous in this post.

So I was in traffic court the other day and I had a client who had been pulled over by the same officer on 5 different occassions.  His vehicle is easy to spot so the officer is clearly pulling him over to give him a hard time.  Does my client have several modificications to his car that are not legal, yes.  Does he deserve the harrasment that he is receiving, no!  For the record, the officer has given my client criminal violations, moving violations and non moving violations.

On this particular set of tickets there was one ticket that I just refused to plead guilty to because the officer had written a ticket for not obeying his command, the command being to fix your car modifications.  I told the officer that we would not be pleading guilty to this ticket and we would be going to trial.  I told the officer he could not prove the violation against my client.

Apparantly, the officer was scared to go to trial against me on this ticket and may have believed that I would beat him.  So instead, he decided to amend the ticket to a criminal violation.  Now, when I was a prosecutor, if I told a person that if they didn’t plead guilty to a charge I was going to file much more serious charges it might be considered unethical to force someone to plea like that.  Is it unethical for an officer to do that?  I don’t know the answer, but I do think that it is wrong what he did.

The only bright part of this story is that because he is trying to stick it to my client he is going to be beyond the speedy trial deadline for a criminal case and I will be able to get the criminal case dismissed.  That’s what this officer deserves for trying to jam up my client.  I would love to show the dismissal to the officer but I think he would just go look for my client againt to give him some more tickets.  So I think I will just quietly laugh at him in my head the next time I see him.

If you have a ticket or a criminal case you can find more information about my firm at dontpaythatticket.com or call us at 561-989-9999.

 

 

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Oct
20

Moving violation and traffic court misconceptions

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This post is to try and clear up a common misconception about traffic court.  I have many clients who hire me and say, “can you reset my case a bunch of times so the officer won’t show up and my case will be dismissed”.

In theory, this sounds like a good strategy.  In practice it has no affect at all as to whether an officer comes to court.  Each time you continue or reset your case, the officer will be notified by subpoena when the hearing is,  so if he wants to be there, he will be there.

Most dismissals that come from officers not being present is because the officer just couldn’t be there or didn’t care to be there, but not because he didn’t know to be there.

That being said, there is a certain strategy to setting cases for trial.  Certain officers and certain agencies are know for not always showing up for trial.  Being an experienced Ticket Attorney and knowing all the officers in the county who write the majority of the tickets is very helpful.  If you have a ticket and are looking for an experienced Traffic Lawyer give us a call.

If you want more information about my firm you can go to www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us at 561-989-9999.

 

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Oct
04

Why won’t Hearing Officers admit when they are wrong?

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I realize I haven’t posted lately but I will try and get back to regular posting.  This post is mainly to bitch about a Traffic Hearing Officer that will remain unnamed.

I recently had a client receive traffic school on his case and he felt his record didn’t deserve traffic school.  So I decided to file a motion to mitigate on his case and on further inspection of his driving record that was provided to me by the court, I found that they had attached a page of a driving record that did not belong to my client.  This additional page made my client’s record appear worse than it really was.

So, I filed a motion to mitigate, attached this erroneous driving record to my motion and pointed out that I believe a mistake had been made at no fault of the hearing officer who probably also didn’t know this page was erroneously attached.  My motion was DENIED!

So the moral of this post is that Traffic Hearing Officers, as well as Judges, sometimes don’t want to admit when they are wrong.  We all make mistakes, even them; and when an obvious mistake is pointed out they should do the right thing and correct the wrong.

If you have been given a ticket or charged with any criminal offense contact my office at 561-989-9999  or through my website www.dontpaythatticket.com.

 

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May
11

Trial results on a fatality case.

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Recently I went to trial on a case where my client was charge with Careless driving which led to the fatality of two passengers in her car.   The Judge found my client guilty when there was NO evidence that my client did anything careless that led to this “accident”.

The purpose of this post is to make the point that sometimes, I believe, certain factors affect certain judges when they make their rulings.  I honestly believe that when there are two people dead as a result of an accident, certain Judges want to find someone at fault.  Some Judges can put the fatalities to the side and be truly impartial and consider only the facts proven.  Others cannot.

Sometimes there really are “accidents”.  Not all accidents must lead to someone being charged with a traffic violation.  Even a Florida Highway Patrol Officer once told me that he didn’t want to charge my client with a violation but someone died so he had to.  This is a bad policy decision.  Not every accident has a party at fault.

This leads me back to my initial gripe that my client was found guilty even though there was no evidence that this was anything other than an accident.  The Judicial System let my client down.

If you have been charge with any traffic violation or any criminal matter you can find out more information about my firm at www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us directly at 561-989-9999.

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Apr
20

Financial Responsibility Suspensions

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After a consultation with a client today I realized there is some fundamental unfairness with financial responsibility suspensions.  First of all, let me explain what kind of suspension this is.  Generally speaking, in most circumstances, this is a suspension put on a person’s license because they got into an accident and did not have sufficient insurance to cover the other parties damages; and the injured party has basically put a lien on the license for those damages.

So this seems like a fair practice, but the problem is the other party holds all the cards and is the only person who can release this lien.  They can either demand payment in full or allow the uninsured party to make payments and release the lien.  Even this seems relatively fair……but the part that bothers me is that this is a type of suspension that there is no hardship license available for.   What is a hardship license?  This is a license that allows you to basically drive for work purposes only.  You would think that you would want a person who owes money to be allowed to go to work to earn money to pay back the injured party.

Here is the really unfair part.   Most other suspensions allow you to get a hardship license after some period of time.  You can be on a 5 year habitual traffic violator suspension and get a hardship license after a year.  You can be on a DUI suspension and get a hardship license after either 30 or 90 days depending on whether you gave a breath sample or not.  You can be on a 2 year drug suspension and get a hardship license after a year, and on and on.

In my opinion a financial responsibility suspension should be on that list which allows a hardship license so the person can maintain a job and start paying back the injured party.  Instead, my client is now facing criminal charges because he got caught driving on his financial responsibility suspension.

If you have been caught driving on a suspended license and you would like more information about my firm or hiring a Palm Beach County Traffic Attorney, you can visit us at www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us directly at 561-989-9999.

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Apr
18

What kind of attorney is the best attorney to have?

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I have watched all kinds of attorneys in both traffic court and criminal court.  Some attorneys are very smart and know the law better than anyone else but they have absolutely no social skills.

Some lawyer are very aggressive and abrasive in the representation of their clients; and prosecutors can find these types of lawyers difficult to deal with and they tend to not want to kelp them out at all on terms of deals or plea offers.

Some lawyers are as dumb as rocks and incompetent and shouldn’t be anywhere near a court room.

Some lawyers have great social skills and know how to get along with everyone from the judges to the prosecutors.  They may not be the smartest lawyers but sometimes they get the best results.

I won’t say what category I fall into, but leave it to say that I’m not dumb as a rock and incompetent.

You can usually get a good feel for what kind of lawyer you are dealing with by consulting with them over the phone.  The personality will come through.  This is why it is very important to speak to or meet your lawyer before retaining him/her.

If you would like more information about my firm you can look us up on the web at www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us directly at 561-989-9999.

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Apr
15

Accident case with 2 fatalities

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Being a lawyer means always learning and adjusting to new things as they come up in trial.   I recently had a trial on an accident case where my client was charged with careless driving when she lost control of her vehicle and two of her passengers were killed in the roll over accident that ensued.

What did I learn from this case? The accident report privilege in Florida is alive and well and I was able to keep many negative statements out due to this privilege.

I also learned that Judges WILL make your clients incriminate themselves in court.  You can argue all you want about the fact that your client should not have to answer certain questions due to the fact that the answers will incriminate your client.  These arguments never work because infraction trials that involve fatalities, although they have very serious consequences are civil hearings and therefore there is no 5th amendment rights.  Even though the criminal burden of proof is used, it is still a civil hearing and your clients are forced to testify against themselves.

Unfortunately my client was found guilty of the infraction which led to the fatalities so the judge has no discretion but to give a $1,000 fine and suspend the license for 6 months per Florida Statute 318.14.

On this finding of guilty the DMV will automatically suspend for 6 months.  I asked the judge to authorize my client to be able to get a work permit.  If you do not get this judge ordered they will not be eligible for such a permit, so it is important to remember to request this.  Will the DMV abide by this judge ordered hardship license??? We will soon find out.

As you can see accidents that involve fatalities are very serious and you should hire an experienced traffic attorney to represent your interests.  If you would like more information about my firm you can look us up on the web at www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us directly at 561-989-9999.

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Apr
11

Mandatory appearance speeding cases.

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As you have probably read in some of my previous posts, if you are going more than 30 miles over the posted speed limit and get caught this is a mandatory court appearance for you.  Now, if you hire a lawyer you do not have to be present and the lawyer can handle the case for you.

Florida Statutes say that the Judge on these cases can impose a $1,000 fine, up to 12 hours of driving school and suspend your license for up to 6 months.

Now if you are a young driver and this is your first such speeding offense, we have been able to negotiate a much better resolution on these cases with some good lawyering.

We have developed what is called a teen plea.  The Judge puts off the sentencing on the case for a period of time for the teenager to complete some conditions.  The standard conditions are:

1. Collect 20 articles on the dangers of speeding, fatalities or body injuries as a result of speeding.

2. Write a 500 word essay on the dangers of speeding.

3. Complete a 4 hour defensive driving school.

4. Receive no new traffic violations.

If the client completes all of these conditions by the sentencing date the charges will be dismissed.  If the charges are not complete, the Judge could sentence you up to the maximum under the law.

This is an excellent deal for this king of speeding ticket.  This is why if you have been caught speeding it is very important to hire the most qualified Traffic Ticket Attorney in Palm Beach.

If you would like more information about my firm you can visit us on the website at www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us directly at 561-989-9999.

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Apr
04

Criminal cases vs. Traffic cases.

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I have come to realize that many clients get better results on their tickets if they are tied to a criminal case.  What do I mean by this?  When you receive a criminal case, such as , Driving on a suspended license with knowledge and you get a couple of other tickets at the same time, the tickets become attached to the criminal case.  The main focus in criminal court is the criminal case and there is much more negotiation on what result you can get on the tickets.  The prosecutors are willing to dismiss all the tickets in some cases or dismiss a couple and plea to a couple.  Bottom line is……many of my criminal clients walk out of criminal court paying less in fines and court costs than my traffic/ticket clients.

There is much less negotiating going on in traffic court because there are no prosecutors.  The prosecutor is basically the officer who wrote the ticket.  Most officers these days don’t want to dismiss tickets even when there are multiple tickets.  Even if you offer to plea to a couple if they will dismiss one.  There are many reasons behind this.  First of all, they are more interested because they wrote the tickets.  Secondly, there is internal pressure from all law enforcement agencies not to dismiss tickets and even some departments require their officers to write memos explaining why a ticket gets dismissed.  With this increased internal pressure officers feel like their hands are tied.

This is when it comes down to personal relationships.  If you have a good working relationship and you really need help on a case you can still get the officer to help you out.  This is why it is important to hire a ticket attorney who knows how to relate to these officers and gain their respect.

If you would like more information about my firm you can visit us at www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us directly at 561-989-9999.

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Mar
29

New life for those who have been revoked as Habitual Traffic Offenders.

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If your license has been revoked for five years as a Habitual Traffic Offender there is new life out there for you and the possibility of getting your license back if your convictions happened under certain circumstances.

House Bill 795 established an amnesty period for Habitual Traffic Offenders whose revocation results from a third conviction of driving while license suspended, cancelled, revoked, or disqualified that occurred prior to July 1, 2010.  The amnesty period begins October 1, 2010 and ends June 30, 2011.

As you can see this amnesty period is ending soon, so if you have been classified as an HTO due to these types of convictions, consult a Palm Beach Traffic Attorney to see if you qualify to get your license back.

For more information you can visit us at www.dontpaythatticket.com or call us directly at 561-989-9999.

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