Source: https://www.pulledover.com/tag/traffic-ticket-attorney-missouri/page/2/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 18:44:49+00:00

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Taking care of your traffic ticket is easy, secure, and legal.
Getting arrested for DWI was a nightmare. I really appreciate you guys always taking the time to explain everything to me and answering all of my questions. Knowing what was going on with my case every step of the way made me feel a lot better. Thank you.
A Missouri Western District appellate court recently ruled in favor of a driver charged with a DWI. Basically it said law enforcement use of evidence of the smell of intoxicants from Defendant’s breath and observing the driver’s bloodshot eyes was insufficient in of itself to show intoxication.
In this case, Defendant was pulled over by a state trooper for expired tags, not because of erratic driving. Defendant refused to blow. Defendant is appealing the circuit court’s judgment affirming the Director of Revenue’s decision to revoke his driving privilege for one year for refusing to take a chemical test pursuant to Section 302.574.
The defendant contends that the circuit court’s finding that there were reasonable grounds to believe the defendant was driving a motor vehicle in an intoxicated or drugged condition was not supported by substantial evidence.
The appellate court said that after reviewing the record, there was no indicia of intoxication present at the time of Defendant’s arrest to support a finding of probable cause for that arrest. Trooper testified at trial that he was concerned that Defendant was intoxicated due to “the odor of intoxicants and then the bloodshot eyes and he admitted to drinking prior to the stop.” The Trooper testified that “I believed that he was under the influence, too impaired to drive.” However, he also testified that the only evidence of impairment was the smell of alcohol and Defendant’s bloodshot eyes. Defendant told Trooper that his bloodshot eyes were due to being tired. Although Defendant had admitted to drinking, his reported last drink was fifteen hours prior to the stop.
• Observed no other evidence of intoxication from Rocha’s eyes; he observed no glassy eyes, staring eyes, constricted pupils, slow reaction to light, dilated pupils, or anything else that Cool was trained to look for as evidence of intoxication.
• Observed no gross motor movements that would suggest impairment.
• Observed no signs of uncertain balance, swaying, staggering, stumbling, or falling.
• Trooper followed Defendant for almost two miles before stopping Defendant, and during that time he observed nothing about Defendant’s driving that would indicate impairment.
• Observed that when Trooper’s emergency lights went on, Defendant stopped almost immediately.
• Observed no verbal indicators of impairment such as slurred speech, confusion, incoherency, stuttering, or mumbling.
• Observed nothing about Rocha’s clothing or footwear indicated impairment, and Rocha exhibited no unusual behaviors.
• Observed that Defendant recited the alphabet correctly.
The appellate court reversed the lower court and remanded the case. The case was Carlos Rocha v. Department of Revenue. The case was heard before Division Four Judges: Judge Mark D. Pfeiffer; Presiding Judge, Gary D. Witt; and Judge, Anthony Rex Gabbert.
Did you get a ticket in Grandview, Missouri?
In 2017, Grandview Municipal Court issued 5,161 tickets.
Stop Sign, Electric Signal Violation, Driving While Suspended, Possession of Marijuana, or any other ticket, our Grandview traffic lawyers can handle it where “no points” is the goal.
Did you receive a Speeding ticket in Grandview?
Our Grandview traffic lawyers handle speeding ticket defense, where “no points” is the goal.
Let our Grandview traffic law attorneys start helping you today. Fill out the form on the side of this page.
This page contains Court information and links for Grandview, Missouri.
City of Grandview, MO website.
Municipal Court is held thee Mondays each month at 6:00pm.
Proper attire must be worn at court sessions: no shorts, no sleeveless T-shirts, no halter tops, no flip-flops.
Defendants are responsible for being on time and present in court when their cases are called. Those who are not could have a warrant issued for their arrest for failing to appear for the hearing.
In a recent appellate court decision, the court found a police officer had enough reasonable suspicion to pull over the defendant because of the totality of the circumstances he observed. Specifically, the need for medical attention as the reason for a traffic stop.
In this case, the officer observed Defendant enter his vehicle and vomit out the driver’s side window, which would have given the officer grounds to investigate whether Defendant needed medical attention. Defendant drove away immediately, and the officer then observed Defendant drive over a curb, and then take actions in what the officer suspected was an attempt to evade law enforcement.
Under the Fourth Amendment, an officer may approach a vehicle for safety reasons or to assist a motorist, or if the officer has reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, so long as in either case the officer can point to reasonable, articulable facts upon which to base his or her actions. Based on the totality of circumstances of the officer’s observations, there was reasonable suspicion to justify the officer’s traffic stop of the defendant, due to the officer’s function as a caretaker.
David R. Galen (Defendant) had appealed the trial court’s judgment entered upon his conviction for driving while intoxicated (DWI). He argued the trial court erred in overruling his motion to suppress and admitting evidence obtained after a traffic stop because the officer lacked probable cause or reasonable suspicion to conduct the stop. The Appellate court affirmed the Warren County trial court decision.
The case was State of Missouri v. David R. Galen. The opinion was by Judge Gary M. Gaertner, Jr., with judges J.Kurt, S. Odenwald, and Colleen Dolan, concurring.
Attorneys for Appellant were Robert A. Murray, Stephen P. Wilson, and attorneys for Respondent included Joshua D. Hawley and Shaun J. Mackelprang.
Did the 2015 municipal court reforms for traffic violations go too far?
That is the subject of a great editorial by the Kansas City Star a few weeks ago talking about how too many people with traffic tickets are not paying their fines and are getting away with it. Since the state-wide municipal court reform after the Ferguson uprising, there doesn’t seem to be any punishment for not paying fines and not showing up to court.
In many communities, traffic violators have figured out that they don’t need to show up to court because the effective tools of punishment such as higher fines, warrants for not showing up to court, or suspending a person’s license is not an option.
Maximum fines were lowered from $500 to $225. Many cities coffers are severely depleted and are finding it difficult to impossible to enforce law violators without an adequate budget. This has also carried over to enforcement of residential nuisance ordinances that are designed to keep housing safe, particularly with abandoned properties.
For example, one person who didn’t show up to court in a town near Kansas City had been arrested four times for a $450 ticket from 2015 for driving with no insurance and driving with a suspended license. She still hasn’t paid, and likely never will.
One state senator tried to pass a bill to put some teeth back into law enforcement. His idea was that if a citizen fails to show up for a court date, a judge could order community service, issue a civil fine or put a hold on a driver’s license.
Interesting case here from the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District. It is a good example of how the court analyzes out of state DWI related convictions to determine whether they are the equivalent of a Missouri DWI conviction. This is important when it comes to using the out of state DWI convictions to charge an individual with a higher charge under the Chronic Offender statute.
In Missouri, four prior of intoxication-related traffic offenses (“IRTOs”) means the state can charge you with chronic offender status, thereby making it a felony a Class B felony.
The Prosecution admitted evidence of six previous occasions of IRTOs from Arkansas. Defendant appeals the admission of four of these previous IRTOs.
The court found two of the underlying charges to be distinguishable from the ruling in the case of State v. Coday, 496 S.W.3d 572 (Mo. App. 2016), which did not find IRTO convictions in Kansas, because they failed to meet Missouri’s evidentiary standards for a DWI. Kansas Law punishes persons operating or attempting to operate a motor vehicle while intoxicated. In order to use an IRTO out of Kansas, there must be evidence that the individual was convicted of operating a motor vehicle as required for a Missouri DWI.
While, two of the proffered charges may have been thrown out following the ruling in Coday as the statute provided for operate or be in physical control. The court already had 4 prior IRTOs so it declined to make a decision.
Bottom line, if you have previous DWIs in another state, make sure you present the wording of the statute or ordinance in order to exclude the IRTOs as not complying with Missouri Law.
A recent Missouri Western District Court of Appeals decision says a guilty verdict failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a driver was drunk at the time of the accident.
The appellate court essentially determined that too much time had transpired between an accident and when blood was drawn. That fact, plus that there was no evidence that the man had been driving his vehicle when it was driven off the road or evidence of when he became intoxicated led them to overturn the trial court.
The man was clearly drunk according to witnesses but they never observed him driving his vehicle or drinking. Witnesses drove him home and later went back to the scene and called the police. Police found empty beer cans in the vehicle and went to visit the man at his home. He clearly was intoxicated and could not stand to perform a walk and turn field sobriety test.
He was arrested at 11:40 p.m. and transported to the hospital due to concerns about the level of alcohol in his system. He refused to provide a blood sample. A warrant to draw blood sample was obtained and blood was drawn at 2:47 a.m. The test determined that his blood alcohol level was .129 at that time. The man was found guilty during a bench trial for DWI.
The Western District reversed the trial judge. They held that while the State established that he was intoxicated at the time he was first observed by witness, there was no evidence as to when the accident occurred, when the man last consumed alcohol or when he became intoxicated. The trial court erred in convicting him of driving while intoxicated because the State failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he operated a vehicle while intoxicated.
The court discussed the timing of the accident and the time blood was drawn to prove intoxication: “Wilhite raises one point on appeal. In his sole point on appeal, Wilhite argues that there is insufficient evidence to convict him of driving while intoxicated because the evidence failed to establish a temporal connection between Wilhite’s alleged operation of a motor vehicle and his intoxication.
“The offense of driving while intoxicated, section 577.010.1, requires proof of two elements: (1) that the defendant operated a motor vehicle, and (2) was intoxicated while doing so.” State v. Ollison, 236 S.W.3d 66, 68 (Mo. App. W.D. 2007).
Wilhite begins by arguing that there was insufficient evidence to prove that he operated a motor vehicle because no one witnessed him actually driving the truck.
However, Wilhite was the only one at the accident scene on the side of a rural roadway and told Tracy that he was the only one in the vehicle. Based on these facts, the trial court could have reasonably inferred he was operating the truck at the time of the accident. There was sufficient circumstantial evidence to establish that he operated the vehicle. See State v. Besendorfer, 439 S.W.3d 831, 836-37 (Mo. App. W.D. 2014)(holding that circumstantial evidence, including Besendorfer admitting he was the only person in the truck when he was found, was sufficient evidence for “a reasonable trier of fact to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Besendorfer had ‘operated’ his vehicle.”).
time the person was driving.” Ollison, 236 S.W.3d at 68. “In this remote circumstance, ‘time [is] an element of importance’ that the State must establish to meet its burden of proving the defendant drove while intoxicated.” State v. Davis, 217 S.W.3d 358, 360 (Mo. App. W.D. 2007) (quoting State v. Dodson, 496 S.W.2d 272, 274 (Mo. App. W.D. 1973).
“‘Remoteness’, as used in drunk driving cases, has two dimensions: remoteness in time from operating a vehicle, and remoteness in distance from the vehicle.” State v. Varnell, 316 S.W.3d 510, 514 (Mo. App. W.D. 2010).
When the defendant is arrested at a remote time from the operation of the vehicle, the State must show further evidence than a test that reveals the defendant was intoxicated at the time of arrest. State v. Wilson, 273 S.W.3d 80, 82 (Mo. App. W.D. 2008). “There are two rationales for this requirement, but both have the same foundation: the longer the interval between driving and testing, the less accurately the test reflects the state of the driver at the time of the arrest.” Varnell, 316 S.W.3d at 514.
Varnell, 316 S.W.3d at 514. “[I]t is theoretically possible for a driver who quickly ingests alcohol immediately prior to taking a short drive to be in a sober condition when driving, but, due to process of absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, to exceed the limit afterwards.” Id.
The case, WD80701, originated in Boone County and the appeal was heard before Division Three Judges Victor C. Howard (Presiding Judge), Cynthia L. Martin, and Gary D. Witt. The opinion was written by Judge Witt, June 5, 2018.
The trick to avoid speeding crack downs is to hear about them first before you hit the road. So, drivers around Kansas City, this is for you.
For those Kansas City drivers on Interstate 29 and Barry Road area, slow it down and obey speed signs. Starting May 25, the Missouri Highway Patrol along with the Kansas City Police Department and the Platte County Sheriff’s Office started a strategic traffic enforcement effort targeting unsafe driving in this area. Their hope is to curtail the number of crashes by going after every moving violation they can. According to news reports, the crack down on speeding and unsafe driving will last for several months. This area of Kansas City had seen a high number of crashes this last year.
Drivers are no longer the only people that need to watch out for overzealous small cities seeking to raise money instead of raising taxes. Now homeowners are being aggressively targeted to pay fines related to housing violations.
Apparently, the use of traffic violations is not the only way small cities are raising money to run their towns. A recent trend, especially in the St. Louis region since the post-Ferguson Court Reform that capped the amount of revenue raised from traffic tickets, is for cities to pursue neighborhood ordinance nuisance violations.
What we saw in the St. Louis metro area since post Ferguson also takes place around the country. New stats compiled shows that many cities are using these tactics to raise money and that several St. Louis area municipals remain among the top practitioners.
Cash-strapped towns and cities across the nation don’t want to raise taxes to pay the costs of running their cities. Instead, they are using their nuisance laws — with fines and fees for minor traffic violations and violations of local housing codes — to balance their budgets.
For example, in Mountain View, Colorado – a town of around 500 people — made $621,099 in citation revenue in 2013, almost half its annual budget. Several other small Colorado towns in 2015 made more than 30 percent of their revenue from issuing traffic tickets.
The Institute for Justice has filed lawsuits around the country taking on these practices. One lawsuit in Pagedale, Missouri (a town of 3,300), notes that some 1,336 tickets were issued to 896 individuals for housing violations between a seven-year period (January 2010-September 2017). That would mean 39 percent of the city’s adult population was cited.
Violations could include failure to “neatly” hang drapes or curtains; small tears in screen doors; hosting a barbecue in front yards; failure to keep beer away from the grill; etc. A consent decree was negotiated recently that settles the case. The settlement includes reforms on how the City identifies, tickets, and tries those accused of violating its municipal code.
Below is a list of several jurisdictions that heavily rely upon the use of fines and fees to raise revenues. Many of this are right here in Missouri. Statistics were gathered from a 2012 analysis of cities by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2017. Here’s an excellent article on that best explains and breaks down this trend towards taxation by ticket.
Picture yourself driving a rental car that was rented by your friend or a family member. You are then pulled over by the police. The police want to search the vehicle. Do you let them? Do you even have a choice?
A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week gave us clear answers. This Country’s high court said that people who borrow rental cars from family or friends are generally entitled to the same protections against police searches as the actual authorized driver who rented the vehicle.
The decision was unanimous. If a person is in lawful possession and control of the rental car they are deemed to have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the car, even if the rental agreement doesn’t list them as an authorized driver. Therefore, the police will have to have probable cause of a crime committed or a warrant to search the car.
The argument by the current administration was that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy of an unauthorized driver in a borrowed car. Therefore, police could search it without the unauthorized driver’s consent. Attorneys who argued against the search stated that around 115 million car rentals occur each year in the United States. And if the government wins their argument, police would be given an incentive to pull over a rental car driver who commits a traffic violation because they would know they have the right to search it if the driver is not on the rental agreement.
The case involved a driver named Terrence Byrd who in 2014 was driving his fiancée’s rental car on a highway in Pennsylvania. A state trooper stopped him alleging he had committed a minor traffic violation. The troopers observed that Byrd was acting nervously during the stop and he went on to admit that he had a marijuana cigarette in the car. The officers then searched the vehicle, telling Byrd that they did not need his consent because his name was not on the authorization form. When they opened the trunk they discovered 2,500 bags of heroin and body armor. Byrd would later admit that he planned to sell the drugs for $7,000. Byrd received a 10-year prison sentence.
Local municipal courts do not hold sovereign immunity against claims that its practices of traffic and vehicle violations were unconstitutional.
In November 2016, six motorists filed federal claims against a traffic and ticketing practice by the City of Maplewood did not hold constitutional muster.
The City of Maplewood moved to dismiss the claim under the grounds of sovereign immunity.
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the City of Maplewood enjoys no sovereign immunity against claims that its handling of traffic and vehicle violations is unconstitutional.
The ruling affirmed the district court’s ruling that the City is not immune from being sued under 42 U.S.C.1983 in a class action lawsuit that alleged the City’s policy of automatically issuing arrest warrants was unconstitutional. The practice involved issuing arrest warrants when a traffic ticket was not paid or when a person failed to appear in court.
In its holding, the court said that municipalities were not like States. Municipal courts do not enjoy a constitutionally protected immunity from suit under the Eleventh Amendment.
The court rejected other arguments the City made such as it was just maintaining a practice as an arm of the state; and that it was immune from suit because individuals identified as participating in the practices were personally immune from suit. The court explained that in the past a municipality has always been held liable for an unconstitutional practice even when no official was found to be personally liable for their actions under the custom or policy that was found unconstitutional.
Copyright © 2017, Tuteur & Associates, LLC, All Rights Reserved. This website intended for general information purposes only. It does not provide legal advice about any specific case or legal matter and should not be considered a substitute for obtaining such legal advice. Your accessing, viewing, use, or response to this website does not create an attorney-client relationship. An attorney-client relationship is created only upon our acceptance of your case after consultation and your agreement to retain our services. Past results afford no guarantee of future results and that every case is different and must be judged on its own merits.

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