Seeking legal advice..

[Joe]

Last night at 1:02AM I was stopped by a county trooper on a highway. He cited me for doing 60 miles per hour in city limits, in a 45 mph zone, during construction. In actuality, I was doing 55 in the 45, outside city limits in a non-construction zone.

My question is whether I should take the rap or plead not guilty. I'm worried about pleading not guilty because:
- I was indeed doing 10 miles over the speed limit (although I was cited in the 11-15 category).
- I was driving after midnight, where my license is restricted to 5AM to Midnight (Can I be convicted for that post ex facto?)
- There are three people who were there -- myself, the officer, and my passenger. Obviously, the officer holds the most credibility.

EDIT -
I found an official website from our Dept. of Transporation listing road construction zones. Highway 16 in Columbia County, the area in question, is not on this list. What is the best way to cite this? I don't want to just direct them to the website as they could bring up that it may have changed since then. Could I just ask them to look up road construction records?

[Warrior]

pay the goddamn thing lardass

[Joe]

I have enough points on my license that it'll be suspended if I do.

Not to mention I don't like handing out $198.60 for something I didn't really do.

[MyndFyre]

Last night at 1:02AM I was stopped by a county trooper on a highway. He cited me for doing 60 miles per hour in city limits, in a 45 mph zone, during construction. In actuality, I was doing 55 in the 45, outside city limits in a non-construction zone.

My question is whether I should take the rap or plead not guilty. I'm worried about pleading not guilty because:
- I was indeed doing 10 miles over the speed limit (although I was cited in the 11-15 category).
- I was driving after midnight, where my license is restricted to 5AM to Midnight (Can I be convicted for that post ex facto?)
- There are three people who were there -- myself, the officer, and my passenger. Obviously, the officer holds the most credibility.

EDIT -
I found an official website from our Dept. of Transporation listing road construction zones. Highway 16 in Columbia County, the area in question, is not on this list. What is the best way to cite this? I don't want to just direct them to the website as they could bring up that it may have changed since then. Could I just ask them to look up road construction records?

You're probably SOL.
- You're not going to beat the officer on the speed discrepancy.  There could have been an issue with your speedometer and you're not an uninterested party.  The officer is (at least, more so than you).  This is why, if you know cops generally pull you over at 11 over, that you shouldn't do 10 over.  You never know when you might look away from your speedometer for a few seconds and just accidentally kick the speed up; hell, I drive with cruise control obsessively, and I managed to kick it up to 15 over on the interstate today without trying.
- If the officer didn't give you a citation for driving outside of the bounds of your permit, then it probably won't cause a problem if you simply pay the ticket.  However, if you decide to go rogue on this issue, the judge would certainly be within his bounds to say "So, I notice your license has restrictions, and this ticket was issued at 1:02am.  What's the deal?"
- The passenger would also be biased.

Construction:

Map # 69
Road: WIS 33
County: Columbia
Region: SW
Description: CLOSED WIS 33 between WIS 16 and the railroad tracks on the east side of the city of Portage.DETOUR via WIS 33 to WIS 16 to WIS 22 to WIS 33.

If WIS-16 is indeed part of the construction detour AND bounds of the WIS-33 construction, and/or there was posted signage, you're out of luck.  I'd put money that someone has pictures of said signage.

The website doesn't mean anything.  It's not a legal document

I have enough points on my license that it'll be suspended if I do.

Well, that's really the consequences of a poor decision.

You know, after I got my second ticket (my first for speeding), I decided to set bounds.  For me, in general, my bounds are 10% of the posted speed limit, rounded to the nearest MPH, but bounded up by about 7.  So in a 65, I'll do 72; in a 75 (our non-city interstates), I'll do about 82.  Within-city (45) I'll do 50.  My theory is, if my speedometer is off by 5mph (that's a pretty big gap), I'll probably not be pulled over.

Not surprisingly, I haven't been cited by a cop or photo radar (which is used state-wide) in... 5 years.

The bottom line is: you and only you are responsible for the situation in which you are.  If you don't speed, there is next to no chance that a cop is going to pull you over.  Even if you do speed, if you do it in a way in which the cop is going to give you the benefit of the doubt, you'll probably not be pulled over. 

Sorry for going on a rant; my roommate just got pinched by the photo radar because of the same thing.  "I was going 10 over and I got flashed, going 11.  I knew the photo radar goes off at 11 so I figured I'd be ok at 10."  Well, 10 doesn't give you a whole lot of margin for error, human, machine, or otherwise.

[edit] If you really want out, get an attorney.  But that'll probably cost you more than the car, ticket, and ongoing insurance increases combines.

[trust]

Fight it, don't just roll over and pay it. That's pretty pointless. If you go to court and say not guilty, he may ask you on what grounds and you can tell him how you feel. If he sides with you, maybe he'll reduce the charge to a non moving violation (no insurance increase) or maybe he won't side with you and you'll have to pay the fine. However if you just send the payment in you have no chance of any leeway the judge may give you. You never know..he may be a lenient judge that realizes you're a teenager that needs his car on a daily basis and reduce it enough so that it isn't a suspended license. You may also get a dick judge that wants to teach you a lesson, but then the max penalty is going to be paying the fine anyway.

Go to court.

Edit: And no, they're not going to charge you for your license restriction violation ex post facto, as I'm pretty sure it would violate your sixth amendment right.

[iago]

To repeat what I said in another thread: get a bike. :D

[Krazed]

Plead not guilty. Fuck, how many times are people going to ask this..

[iago]

Plead not guilty. Fuck, how many times are people going to ask this..

Twice?

[Krazed]

Plead not guilty. Fuck, how many times are people going to ask this..

Twice?

Winner. But yeah, if you sit there and take it can you get any better outcome then what's in the books? No. Plead not guilty, say what you have to say in court. That's always been my way of doing things, and I have no points and a clean license.

[Rule]

But yeah, if you sit there and take it can you get any better outcome then what's in the books? No.

Actually, the answer is "yes", if the question is whether to "sit there and take it" or "to fight it".  First of all, he could have additional punishment for breaking with the restrictions on his license.  But much more importantly, I notice most people seem to ignore the value of their own time and reducing stress in these situations.  Whenever you decide to spend time fighting something like this, you should believe that it wouldn't be better spent doing something else.  Often the stress and the time that goes into these battles isn't worth it at all.  Every month, I am sure there are tons of things you could argue about where you could stand some tangible gain, and the tangible loss is zero, but the small chance of success just isn't worth the time and stress and other losses.

$198?  Most people could make that in a day or two without having to go through some silly ordeal.  It's guaranteed, you would possibly save time (and you also don't waste other people's time, if that means something), and you'd definitely feel better about it -- not having to squeeze whatever you can out of an imperfect system.

On the other hand, I'm not saying don't do it.  If the loss of your license would result in other big losses, and so on, maybe it is worth your while.  But try to consider everything when you consider what you're losing or gaining.

[MyndFyre]

Edit: And no, they're not going to charge you for your license restriction violation ex post facto, as I'm pretty sure it would violate your sixth amendment right.

That is incorrect; most driving citations are civil complaints, and the sixth amendment rights only apply to criminal complaints.

Fight it, don't just roll over and pay it. That's pretty pointless. If you go to court and say not guilty, he may ask you on what grounds and you can tell him how you feel. If he sides with you, maybe he'll reduce the charge to a non moving violation (no insurance increase) or maybe he won't side with you and you'll have to pay the fine.

Unfortunately, at least here, that's not how it works.  Generally the judge doesn't have any power; what happens is that we would go to arbitration, and the officer would have to show up and tell the arbitrator what happened.  The arbitrator could do worse or do better for you, but you'll probably have zero standing with him (partly because it's a waste of his time, partly because you've got a lot less credibility than a cop).

Now, that could be different in WI.  Maybe you should go to the court and see if the judge would help you out.  My post wasn't generally discouraging you from trying that, so much as "this is what could happen if you do it, don't expect good things."  Oh and also, "Stop driving like a douchetard."

[Joe]

I was given two tickets in February, in the same county. One for running a stopsign (for the record, the cop parked in front of it and I didn't see it, but oh well), and another for violating my passenger restriction. I was given the full 3(*2, as my license is probationary) points for the stopsign, but the additional 3(*2 again) for the violation was changed to "disorderly conduct with a motor vehicle", carrying no points, just a fine.

Also, if the judge saw that I had restrictions on my license whereas the cop didn't, wouldn't that be self-incrimination under the 5th, if I caused him to notice?

[K20A2]

I have enough points on my license that it'll be suspended if I do.

Not to mention I don't like handing out $198.60 for something I didn't really do.

$198.60 for a speeding ticket...I wished I lived there.  I paid $300 for my last speeding ticket, as well as $285 for my last five 'loud exhaust' tickets

[rabbit]

Also, if the judge saw that I had restrictions on my license whereas the cop didn't, wouldn't that be self-incrimination under the 5th, if I caused him to notice?

The 5th only applies cross-case, IE: if the fact that you had a restricted license was critical to proving you were a murderer or something.  The 5th doesn't help you in this case.

[Krazed]

I have enough points on my license that it'll be suspended if I do.

Not to mention I don't like handing out $198.60 for something I didn't really do.

$198.60 for a speeding ticket...I wished I lived there.  I paid $300 for my last speeding ticket, as well as $285 for my last five 'loud exhaust' tickets

Seriously.. I payed 500 for reckless driving in jersey, lameee.