If
you're unfortunate to have gotten a traffic ticket, keep the following
tips in mind, your chances of getting it kicked out are much greater:
1.
Do not be argumentative.
2. Don’t bring your own opinion or arguments to convince the judge.
3. Stick to the facts.
4. Repeat I am not an attorney I don’t understand.
5. Don’t object and press a particular point more than twice.
6. Stay on point.
7. Only accept responsive answers to questions.
8. Ask questions
9. Get judge and, or the prosecutor to commit to positions.
10. Use those positions/arguments against the judge or prosecutor.
1.
Traffic courts are scams run by people only interested in taking
money. They are not in place to administer justice. Being
argumentative only ensures you will be separated from your money.
Going in thinking justice is being administered is to start off on the
wrong foot. Any traffic court judge interested in administering
justice would throw out the majority of traffic tickets within minutes
of them being filed by the police and mail an apology to each
defendant for their time wasted on the traffic stop.
2. Traffic court judges don’t care what we think, except of
course what we think is the easiest and fastest way to pay the court
fine. We are considered guilty the moment the cop decides to
write the ticket. Traffic court is about making it look good and
the judge is always going to be perceived as correct and you wrong.
After all, he’s judge. But, we can get the judge to contradict
himself. If an argument or opinion is used, it should always be
the judge’s.
3. Sticking to the facts is the fastest and most effective way
to demonstrate there is no case. Just asking a couple of
questions is usually enough to have the only witness against you
declared incompetent, which requires his testimony, including the
ticket, to be stricken. Keep in mind that impeaching the only
witness does not mean a judge will strike the testimony and throw the
ticket out.
4. All non-lawyers are legally incapable of defending themselves
and it is unfair to put someone on trial who does not understand the
nature and cause of the proceedings against them. The more the
judge explains about what is going on, the more can be used to make
him contradict himself and prove there is no case.
5. This is related to number one. If I keep pressing a
point, the judge is only going to get angry, and judges are notorious
for having anger management problems. Remember, traffic court
judges do not care. One thing they care about is making the
robbery look good. Don’t help him make it look good.
6. Lawyers, with and without those flowing black robes, are
masters of diversion. Never forget their goal is not getting to
the truth and administering justice, it’s about getting the money
you worked hard to earn. If they get you off-point, they win;
your attention on real issues is gone, and before you know it, the
proceeding is over.
7. Only accepting responsive answers keeps things on point and
works to destroy the appearance of a case. Beware though, know
in advance what is responsive to the question. Bureaucrats are
very good at giving what may appear to be responsive answers; they may
sound good, but they are not responsive. A good example is
“Factually, what is the Constitution?” and the bureaucrat answers
with: “It’s the supreme law of the land.” It sounds
impressive, but it’s not responsive to the question. A
responsive answer is devastating to a bureaucrat’s case. I
have several
scripts available I have used in court successfully.
8. One tactic judges, lawyers and bureaucrats use to divert
attention away from what they are doing is to accuse people of
“arguing.” This is an attempt to make anyone in court look
bad, as if we’re the problem and not the traffic court. By
just asking questions, we can point out we not arguing, just asking
questions. From experience, this is very embarrassing for the
individual accusing me of arguing. Asking questions is also
incredibly effective at demonstrating there is no case, provided of
course, we stay on point and only accept responsive answers.
9. Traffic court judges do not care if you think they have violated
the Constitution or the law. But because their main job is to
make robbing people look good, traffic court judges do not like to
contradict themselves. To do this, I ask questions to get the
judge to commit to certain positions e.g., “Am I entitled to be
informed of the nature and cause of the charges and proceedings?”
and “Am I entitled to a fair hearing?” Because the very
nature of traffic courts is unfair, it’s easy to get the judge to
contradict himself.
10. The judge’s and prosecutor’s positions can always be
used to get them to contradict themselves later. As with the
first question above, after a few more questions the judge will say,
“I’m not here to answer your questions.” I just have to
then remind him he already told me I was entitled to be informed.
Also, by asking just a couple of questions, I’ve had judges declare
a witness competent, incompetent and then competent again in only a
few minutes. By contradicting himself like that, all pretense of
fairness is gone.
One of the most valuable pieces of information you can learn about
traffic courts and bureaucrat attacks is this: A
ticket/complaint is not synonymous with a case. Of
course a traffic court judge will disagree with this. His object
is not truth and justice, it’s taking money away from people.
Remember, just because a cop writes a ticket does not mean he has
presented a case before a court. No court has the “legal”
authority to proceed against someone unless a case is presented to it;
this
is just a short list of the “authorities” to prove it.
However, traffic court judges are interested only in getting your
money, so things like the “law” do not interest them. I
discuss this in detail in my book Adventures
in Legal Land, in several
articles and on my radio show The No
State Project. There are also archived radio shows I’ve
appeared on here.
