From: gwu@nujoizey.tcs.com (George Wu)
Subject: Berkeley Traffic Court
Followup-To: ca.driving
Keywords: Fight Your Ticket!!!!
Organization: Teknekron Communications Systems Inc.
Distribution: ba
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 01:03:07 GMT

-
     Well, as long as someone brought up the subject, I've recently
contested two tickets in Berkeley, and I'm batting .500.  Oh, note
that I've set followups to ca.driving.

     The first ticket was a radar ticket for speeding on Adeline.
This area and nearby sections of Martin Luther King and Ashby are
places to really watch out.  The gist of my argument was there's
no way the radar gun could have locked onto my motorcycle in the
midst of traffic.  Hang 'Em High Rantzmann agreed, and proceeded
to convict me "on the basis of the officer's visual estimate of
your speed."

     Ticket number two was for parking (my cage, actually) in a
handicap space at the Andronico's on Shattuck.  Basically, I didn't
notice the paint, which isn't entirely obvious for the particular
space I chose, and there was no sign, as the California Vehicle
Code states there should be.  This case I won, which is nice, since
it would have cost me $100, the legislative minimum, otherwise.

     What was interesting was the trial procedure for the most recent
ticket.  Berkeley just handed over all processing of parking tickets
to the county.  No fewer than fourteen cases (mostly moving violations)
were to be tried in the two hour session for which I was scheduled.
Yup, fourteen cops got paid to sit in court while my motorcycle gets
stolen for joy rides and the cops don't have enough manpower to even
take the report so someone would be looking for it.

     Anyways, getting back to the trial, due to the case load, we
were all asked if anyone minded being tried by a judge pro tem, ie.
a temporary judge.  No one having objected, half us, including me,
got sent to another court room where the temp heard cases.  (I
don't remember her name, but it was a woman.)  This woman seemed
somewhat of a stickler for procedure and was a bit impatient, but
she found me innocent, and took at least one other case under
advisement because she couldn't make up her mind.  I consider this
a good sign, at least compared to the rubber stamp convictions for
which Rantzmann is known.

     I have to wonder why all of the sudden the traffic court
system is so crowded.  I suspect Bezerkeley's decided it needs to
raise more revenue, and has made a big push to issue lots of
traffic tickets.  I also suspect that if this is so, and with the
addition of parking tickets to the court docket, Berkeley just
might be overloaded and be forced to start dismissing cases.

						George


PS: Here's a bit of free advice: insist upon formal procedures when
contesting tickets.  During arraignment, I agreed to an immediate
and informal hearing of a motion for dismissal, for which I was not
yet prepared.  The motion was denied, and I later found the basis
for the denial was incorrect.  Had I gone through the separate
motion appearance, I would have had the proper research complete
just to have filed the papers.  I tried to motion again in the trial,
but of course, the judge refused to consider my motion at trial.  A
motion to dismiss based on violation to a speedy trial *must* be
presented at a separate hearing scheduled at arraignment.  I'm not
sure what the implications for appeal are of an informal motion without
any papers on file with the court.

PPS: As usual, I'm no lawyer, so this advice is only worth what you
paid for it.

----
George J Wu, Software Engineer         | gwu@tcs.com or uunet!tcs!gwu
Teknekron Communications Systems, Inc. | (510) 649-3700
2121 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA, 94704  | Never be the first to believe . . .
Newsgroups: ba.motorcycles