Preparation is the bulk of the work in getting the charges dismissed in court. Things to do before you even look to prepare for court are:

· Any automotive administrative work (e.g. registration renewal, inspection, etc)
· Resolve any outstanding parking tickets before the trial
· Review your upcoming schedule so you know what conflicts you would have with a court date

Next, you need to enter your plea and set the court date. There are three typical ways to enter your plea with the court:
· Personal appearance at the Court Clerk’s Office to request a trial date
· Appear before the Judge and enter your not guilty plea and ask for a trial date
· Mail in a copy of the citation along with your request for a trial date

You will most likely need to post bail in the amount of the fine. Once you are given a trial date, you need to understand that you have the Constitutional rights of a “fair and speedy trial.” A speedy trial is accepted to be 45 days from the date you entered your plea. The prosecution of the court may contact you to change the date of the trial and waive your right to a speedy trial. You do not want to waive this right.

· Sometimes your citation includes the officer’s vacation dates as a courtesy to the court. This is GOLD! Pick a date right in the middle of the vacation dates and count back 40 days. This is the date you want to enter your plea at the Clerk’s office. The vast majority of trial dates are set 40 days after you enter your plea. If all goes well, the officer will be on vacation when you go to court and you simply motion to dismiss due to no prosecution witness. However, this is very optimistic. What will most likely happen is the prosecution will try to reschedule/push back your trial date. If they push your trial back past 45 days, you need to research the local case law that shows that the officer’s vacation time is not a good cause for the purpose of continuance. You then go to court and cite your case law findings and motion or a mistrial since they denied you the right to a speedy trial.

You need to be prepared if the officer actually does show up to trial so do not forget that you have the right to Discovery. Check with your local court clerk’s office to follow the procedure for a discovery subpoena. You can request the following information:

· Radar – Repair records, manufacturers manual and specifications, calibration log and the Department’s FCC License to operate the radar unit
· Tuning Fork – Certificate of accuracy and repair or calibration records
· Police Officer – Arrest record, daily log for the date of your offense, radar training record and operator’s certification and copies of both sides of your original citation.
· Patrol Car – Speedometer calibration certificate and repair and maintenance records

Clearly, getting all this information would be a big pain in the you know what. The prosecution could counter this request and refuse to provide this information. Then, you just need to go to your trial and motion to dismiss the charges because you were denied your discovery rights asking the prosecutor what he is trying to hide by denying you access to these documents. If this motion is denied, you can motion for a continuance to give yourself more time to prepare for the trial.

Now, say you do get the documents that you requested. You can spin the information on all these documents to your favor. Take, for example, radar repair records. If they were frequently repaired, you could argue that the unit had chronic problems. If there wasn’t any repair you could say there was a lack of maintenance of the unit. Another example is the officer’s radar training. They are supposed to have 24 hours of classroom instruction and 16 hours of field training. However, most officers are department trained for a very short period of time. This can be used to discredit the officer’s testimony in court. The list goes on for the things you can do in this situation. Check on http://www.worldlawdirect.com/ to get the full list.
Usually, there are two directions that traffic tickets are argued: a case of mistaken identity of the vehicle or a false radar reading.

The following should be the order of your strategy:
1. Lack of prosecution witness – This is the best case scenario. If the police officer doesn’t show up, the prosecution has no witness, and can motion to dismiss.
2. Prosecution fails to prove the case against you – You need to check the actual vehicle code section that you are charged with violating. If the prosecution fails to prove every item in the code section, you can motion to dismiss.
3. Prove a factual error – This is where you need to be able to prove a factual error such as you were not the driver, you were not driving at an unsafe speed, the radar reading was inaccurate, and etc. This can be proven through evidence such as the radar unit was not calibrated or proving a procedural error of the police officer.

It is important to be prepared for the trial. Make a checklist for yourself of the different strategies to follow. If the officer shows up, no problem, just move on to the next strategy. Hopefully, this series was helpful to you in fighting a speeding ticket. Have you or anyone you know tried these tactics before?