Traffic Ticket Evasion

So most of you probably know that I’ve been pulled over many times but have rarely ended up with a ticket on my record. All of my luck with the system had been pre-California since, until Christmas, I had never been pulled over in this state. But when that ten-year streak came to an end in a blaze of high beams and the shimmer of blue lights, I decided that I’d want to keep my “perfect record” streak alive and get out of this ticket. While my battle lasted only about 30 minutes, I want to show you one courageously fought battle with The Man.

First, about my ticket: I was going something like 80 MPH in that stretch of 101 between Candlestick and downtown. But when the motorcycle cop showed me the ticket stating 75 MPH in a 65 MPH zone, I was actually temporarily elated. A couple weeks later I made my first move at getting out of this thing, but the court clerk told me not to waste my time. She said that the cop would most certainly show up and convince the judge to keep the ticket and that I would end up spending a lot of time trying on a fool’s errand.

So, later that day I admitted defeat and sent money for the fine and request to enter traffic school. Well, fuck me if later that day I didn’t get a message on VMware’s internal “Fun [Mail] List” making me feel like the biggest pussy ever. If this story doesn’t make you think of Colbert-sized Balls (note the capital “B”) and timeshare-like tenacity then you’re not paying attention.

Last friday I received the appeal court’s decision ordering the traffic court to dismiss my traffic infraction case (50 on alma street, radar ticket).
The ruling is based on the issue that I had sent the police department a discovery request to examine their evidence before trial, and the officer only let me examine his evidence 10 minutes before trial, which did not really leave me any time to prepare.

At trial, I had asked the judge to either dismiss my case or defer the trial due to the discovery issue, but he refused. Then I pointed out that the use of a radar was a ‘speed trap’ because the traffic survey on alma indicates it is based on speed samples taken more than 5 years prior to the citation.
The judge said that in some cases the law allows for a 7 year extension, and that in his opinion this extension was applicable here because the officer’s testimony of a 9 feet lane width was proof of my unsafe speed.
After trial I went back to alma street and found out that the lane width is actually 10 feet and 4 inches, so I got pissed and appealed.

In the appeal, I said that the judge should not have taken the case to trial on the same day I was shown the discovery evidence, that he acted as a prosecutor when he argued for the 7 year extension to be applicable (he’s only supposed to rule on the arguments the prosecution has made), and that my conviction was based on a false testimony from the officer.

All in all, I think the appeal court’s decision is very diplomatic in that it only mentions the discovery issue. Too bad, I would have been actually curious to see what they thought of the two other points.

Also, part of the delay during discovery was due to the palo alto police department’s policy of asking for a fee before they will provide discovery.
I had actually never heard of this policy, and apparently neither had the appeal court judges. They seemed to be quite pissed about that. If anyone here appeals their citation from the PAPD and makes a discovery request, I would be very curious to see if they’ll be asked for a fee. Please let me know either way 🙂