I don't mean to derail jcee15's thread, but I have another b.s infraction case coming soon, and I am going to fight it myself, and I need your input. The citation was issued on april 12, early Saturday morning, around 3 am, in Westwood, UCLA I was sitting on the trunk of my car, which was parked on the street, talking to one of my friends. Then this patrol car drove by, the officer got out and told me that he saw me holding a cup. I said ‘no you did not”. Then he told me “no, you’re lying”. Then I showed him a pack of Marlboro light cigarettes that I have in my hand. And I told him, "as you can see, this street is where all the fraternities are located, it is also the second week of spring quarter, that’s why you see a lot of cups and bottles on the ground, but they are not mine". Then he said, “well, I saw you leaned over and put a cup on the ground” At this point, I knew where this is going. He then asked, "is this your car?" So I said "yes". He walked around then checked my license plate, my car's sticker clearly said august 2008. Then he went on to use the phone for 10 minutes, and the next thing I knew, I received two citations, the open container ticket, and another one for expired registration. The registration citation, I wrote a letter and appealed right away and it was dismissed. Three weeks ago, I went for my arraignment for the open container and found out that I was not even in the Court system, because the cop wrote the wrong violation code on my ticket, so the Court is still waiting for the cop to re-issue the correct ticket. So right now, I am still waiting for my next arraignment date, and I am definitely going to trial for this b.s ticket. Do you guys think the judge is going to dismiss this case?
Maybe the cop thought you were a future police officer and deserved a perk........ Or maybe he was just lazy.... Good for you ..... DD
If the cop made a material error like writing the wrong violation code, you might be in the luck. For example, a buddy of mine got a ticket and the police cop wrote down the guy was white, when in fact he was Asian. He also misspelled his name. My friend told the judge, "if the cop can make such simple errors as mis-identifying my race and my name, he can misjudge whether or not I went through the stop sign." The judge was convinced and threw out the case. Moral of the story: Try to find something that will cast doubt on the officer's competence.
