On Tue, 3 May 2005 09:29:43 -0400, (I
AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote:

From: (Dave*Hall)
On Tue, 03 May 2005 01:53:26 -0700, Frank Gilliland
wrote:
But in criminal court the state must prove

beyond a reasonable doubt in order to gain a

guilty verdict. You are presumed innocent until
then. Traffic court is not quite the same. While

they may not specifically say it this way, the

fact that you got a ticket, is evidence of guilt,

and you have to try your best to prove that

you're not guilty.



In Florida, if one has a clean license (no tickets on record) and is
issued a simple traffic ticket, such as for exceeding the speed limit
(but less than 15 mph over the legal limit, as speeding more than 15 mph
over the limit requires a mandatory court appearance) and challenges it
in court, the ticket is practically always dismissed.




The word of one cop is enough, in most

cases, to render a "guilty" verdict, unless

you're damn lucky and can somehow "prove"

your innocence.

You are assuming the majority of tickets issued are not dismissed.

I do not have statistics on this, but from my (again nameless) police
friends, I am told that most times the tickets stand, as long as the
cop appears, and the offense is not easily disputable. That's why, in
Pa, they normally give you 5 - 10 MPH over the speed limit, so as to
eliminate the dispute over accuracies. In many cases the cop does not
appear, and you can consider that a "gimme". But there's no way to
predict who will show and in which case.

Dave
"Sandbagger"