Fight them to the bitter end - how far would YOU go? (Long and OT but please read)

[Garyo4]

Great post!
I say shoot'em with their own bullets. Slap the mayor's license plates onto your car, or for that matter, a rental car, and get as many pic's taken that you can in "no parking" zones. Shouldn't be long after that before the policy gets changed.
Good luck, don't ever give up.
Regards,
Gary

[djmcmath]

There are obviously two sides to this one:
1 - If you are guilty, pay the fine. This is the ultimate in simplicity, and appeals back to my younger days when Do The Right Thing seemed like it made so much sense. Good on ya if ya do this, you're an honorable man.
2 - Regardless of guilt or innocence, the plaintiff in this case has clearly screwed up, and should be squashed for their blatent violation of proper procedure. Failing to fight this ticket teaches the plaintiff that they can deprive citizens of their personal property without anything like "due process of law." Just like the illegal search cases that I defend to the death (and win), the prosecution failed substantially to protect the rights of the accused, ran roughshod over his constitutional rights, and in doing so, sacrificed the whole case.

So I'd say fight the darn thing. They can't take your $100 without due process of law. You have to go to court and stand before a judge to explain that they have to prove all of the elements of the parking offense before they can take your money. Or maybe it's different in Victoria; good luck.

Dan (I'm really not a lawyer, I just act like one sometimes. None of the above statements constitute legal advice, merely the opinions of someone who reads too much.)

[yelcab1]

Those who have the opinion that "you should pay if you did it," ... please send in $100 in an envelope to the local law enforcement facility each and everytime you exceed 65MPH on the freeway, whether there was anyone to catch you or not.

Fight the system, fight the injustice, fight for your freedom, fight for your rights, fight for everyone else's right, fight until your last breath, fight standing up, fight sitting down, fight laying on the ground, when you lose - appeal it and appeal it some more.

[Hugh R]

Originally posted by onewhippedpuppy
WALLACE, WALLACE, WALLACE!

Being of Scotish descent, that's great.

[banjomike]

You are clearly an Al Quaeda terrorist. All decent citizens are aware that dissent is tantamount to treason. Be polite to the men in black when they show up at your door.

This thread has been recorded and submitted to PM Howard's office for persecuting (oops) prosecuting this case.

[Superman]

I had the same thought as Yelcab. Respectfully, I'd ask Dr. Gore and others this question: Assume you park and go into a store. When you return, you notice you had parked in a No Parking zone. Fact is, you committed the offense. How lofty do your ideals rise. I assume you would call the local parking authority and insist that a citation be issued to you.

Let's say then that you are driving with bare feet from one beach to another in Washington State (where, by the way, we make the mistake of allowing automobiles on beaches). It so happens that driving barefoot is still illegal in Washington State under an antiquated statute that no one pays any attention to. Let's say that you are pulled over and issued a citation for this and upon further investigation you find that the reason local police knew of your barefootedness via a webcam they had illegally placed in your car. You gonna pay that fine too? You broke the law, dude.

Now, I recognize these are caricatures, but caricatures illustrate that very very very few people are unqualifiedly, fully "ethical" or "obedient." It is always a matter of degree. The question is not whether someone is completely compliant or not. The question is a matter of degree. You might assume I do not react well to righteous indignation.

Again, I submit this respectfully.

[Evans, Marv]

I noticed you said the local government had outsourced the operation to a private company. In the city of San Diego, there was a situation where the local government outsourced photo enforcement of stop lights at some intersections. The tickets were about $275 each for being photographed running the light. A group of citizens protested and made a big deal out of it. In the end, what they found out was that the private company had altered (shortened) the timing of the yellow light to be able to issue more tickets - they got a portion of each ticket fine. Because of that, I wouldn't trust any similar system where private companies can potentially manipulate the situation to their profit advantage. FIGHT !!!

[Par911]

I doubt anyone on this board would dispute that the vast majority of traffic enforcement is done to raise revenue and not to protect the public. These big brother methods are just an extreme example of the enforcement philosophy. I get sick of hearing people say "If you did it, then pay." This is just acquiescing to government control of your life and, IMHO is an un-American attitude.

Tell em Dan, I agree with you 100%, I have a court date next month.
Keep fighting the systems that are in place to drain the wealth of the taxpaying citizens of this and other countries!!!!

[vash]

fight!

well written, i actually have a female friend that talks like you write. too bad she is in boston.

[Rick Lee]

Here in DC, Lockheed Martin gets a sizeable cut of each ticket issued/paid. DC has placed cameras in areas with next to no traffic, so that some unsuspecting motorist at 3:00am on an empty street gets nailed, while known danger spots with rampant red light running have no cameras. They also have cops sit in parked cruisers on I-295 that have radar cameras in them. Lockheed gets a cut of these tickets too. I heard that when you go to court to fight, no cop appears, but rather a rep. from Lockheed comes to explain how their equipment caught you. If I ever get one of these, I will proudly go into court and dress down anyone from Lockheed, ask if anyone in that courtroom saw me commit the infraction or even operated the device that photographed my car and I will walk free. I look forward to this, but the only time I got nailed was while making a U-turn when the light turned, so the camera got the side of my car and no plates.

[svandamme]

fight it , if that pic is as blurry as you say,
then it isn't going to stand up in court

i've got beef with a cop that says my drivers licence isn't valid
i now carry 80 pages of european legislation ( i'm belgian with belgian licence and since 2 years living in the netherlands) and making weekly calls to the ministry of traffic and transportation and will keep doing so till they correct dutch law ( euro law supersedes )

for as long as you can fight without having lawyers on your payroll, i say fight it....

[Joe Bob]

I fight every ticket I get...whether I'm guilty or not....*********s are gonna pay for screwing up my day.

Surprisingly I beat 95% of them.....

[Adam]

Can you post the picture they sent you, Vic?

Based on your story, I'd fight it all the way, too.

[Victor]

Hi Adam, I don't have a scenner and left the photo in the office. I will try to take a photo of it and see if that works.

I am about to take the kid to the scene of the crime because we have run out of coffee.

We are taking scooters.

Actually, I'll take the digital camera - he might be there. Stay tuned!

[sammyg2]

No, I do not send money to the local law enforcement agencies every time i exceed the speed limit.
But I also will not lie and say I didn't do something that I know I did.
By fighting the ticket, many of you are implying that it is all right to lie about something if you can get away with it. I wasn't raised that way.

Everyone has a price, and everyone will tell a lie if the cost of telling the truth is high enough. Fortunately for me that price is much higher that $100. I guess it's a character thing.

[Joe Bob]

If I am doing sumthin' dumb....and get caught....then ya....I bite the bullet. But it's been a LONG time since both those have happened.

It pi$$ses me off when I get pulled out of group of other cars and get cited for the going with the flow of traffic.

[djmcmath]

Dr. Gore,
it isn't about the fine, it's about procedure. Nobody's arguing guilt or innocent, the question is whether or not the police can deprive me of my personal property ($100) without proper evidence. Let's say that the original poster rolls over and takes the hit for this one -- guilty or innocent, makes no difference. The lesson to the local parking enforcement agency is that they don't _need_ evidence to convict people. Claim somebody did something, and chances are excellent they won't fight it.
That's how traffic enforcement has gotten in our country -- 95% of all tickets go uncontested. People disregard the question of guilt or innocence, and though they may very well be innocent, they won't fight because they feel they don't know how, can't, etc. Little do they realize that if they just fought the ticket, they'd discover that the officer totally falsified the whole thing, hadn't ever been trained in radar usage, had a broken radar device, was drunk, and couldn't remember the events of the day anyway. Somebody has to police the police, and it really has to be the people who catch the police doing stupid things.
Moreover, he's not lying by saying he wants to contest the ticket. He's merely asking the government to prove their case against him, and finding that a) the gov't has no evidence to present and b) it doesn't seem to matter.
So while I respect your ethics and character, I disagree with your legal interpretation of the situation.


Dan

[sammyg2]

i'll say it again, if a person did not commit the infraction he or she is being accused of, they should fight it as hard as possible on principle alone.
But...........
In the US, if you contest a charge you are pleading not guilty.
If you plead not guilty to a charge and you commited what they are charging you with, you are lying. No matter how you twist it around, that is still true.
I understand your points and I'm not saying they are wrong, they are just from a different perspective than mine. There are lots of ways to get out of taking personal responsibilty for you actions. Rationalizing your actions only help to cover up your wrong doings.
If the police officer was not properly trained to use a radar gun when he clocked you at 75, does that mean you weren't going 75? no, it means you might get away with something you did. you still broke the law, you just didn't get punished for it.

Kind of a philisophical argument, similar to a debate between a lawyer and a preacher.
one discusses proceedures and rules, the other discusses morals.

Ask yourself this:
Suppose you have your young children watching your every move. What ever decision you make may leave them with a lasting impression of how they should live the rest of their lives. Will you still plead not guilty to something you know you did if you think you can get away with it? Is that the lesson you want to teach them?

I can guarranty you that if my father was put in this situation he would tell them that yes, he was breaking the law and would accept proper punishment. He always made it a point to teach my 3 brothers and I the difference between right and wrong.
i guess this is part of my reasoning to spend $700 a month (which is hard for someone like me to afford) to send my two children to a private christian school when I could send them to public shool and spend that money on something more fun like a race car.
I want them to learn more than just the three Rs, I want them to be moral people when they grow up.

I also figure a $100 fine is cheap if that's all it costs me to keep my self respect and maintain my egotistical dilusion that I may be a better person than some others
Based on the actions of today's society I'm probably in the minority on this one.
BTW, I'm only a doctor to the SCWDP, kind of an inside joke. I'm a mechanical engineer by profession.

[HarryD]

Dr. Sam,

With all due respect, I beg to differ.

I am not a lawyer but I have sat on juries and through my profession have had to discuss what constitutes evidence in a legal proceeding.

In the "ordinary" world, I quite agree with your position. As a father, I want to show my children the difference between right and wrong but I also want them to aprreciate the enorumus benefits our legal system has to ensure that you are always "presumed innocent until PROVED guilty. As a result of this concept, the defintion of "guilty" and "not guilty" is different than what we have it to be in a non-legal setting.

Under the law, you are "guilty" when the procescuter provides sufficent LEGAL evidence to show you committed the offence you are charged with. Under the law, what constitutes evidence is usually very strictly defined. In our case, suitable evidence can be a photograph. However, they cannot just show a potograph of a car that looks like yours in the area of question. They have to meet certain tests. Without actually reading the law, I would suspect the photograph has to clearly show the license plate to uniquely identify the vehicle as yours. The photograph has to show the date and time the picture was taken ans well as a way to show that the date was not altered or added later. As stated by Victor, when you look at the evidnece (the picture), you can not definitavely tell it his car as you cannot read the license plate nor show any other marking at are so unique that it could only be his car. Hence, under the rules of the justice system, he is not guilty since the procescuter failed to present suitable evidence.

While you can take the moral position that, while all of this is quite true, he still was illegally parked and therefor should pay the fine. I do not want to get into that arguement only to say, I believe that in all matters great and small, we need to hold our enforcers of justice to the same high standards. Otherwise, those who have these powers can abuse them by arresting us on false charges, present inadequate evidence, and consequently strip us of our freedom. I personnally do not want to live in such a society.

The people charged with enforing the laws recieve detailed trainning on what constitutes legal evidence, how to gather, document and preserve such evidence, and what the consequences of failing to perform as required. If they fail to do their jobs properly, they fail to meet the definition of"guilty".

Therefore pleading not guilty is not lying if you belive the evidence does not meet the legal requirements. You are stating that the procescuter has failed to meet the rules that result in finding you guilty. No more, no less.

Respectfully submitted.

*** Addendum***

I did a google search on not guilty. I found this web page of defintions (http://www.the3rdjudicialdistrict.com/glossary.htm).

One of particular interest is this one:

"presumption of innocence - A hallowed principle of criminal law to the effect that the government has the burden of proving every element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt and that the defendant has no burden to prove his innocence. "

Once again, it is the procecuion that has the duty to show clearly that the one charged has indeed commtted the crime.

[pwd72s]

Originally posted by sammyg2
Please don't take offense but you asked for opinions, here's mine:

Was your car parked in a place that was marked as no parking?
If not, fight it.
If so, it doesn't matter what the picture looks like. it doesn't matter who took the picture. it doesn't matter is it was a weekend. it doesn't matter how messed up the computer system is.
if you did something wrong, you should fess us and pay the fine.
Forget about if they can prove it or if you can get away with it.

Accountability has nothing to do with how you got caught or what they can prove.

Sam? Uh, remember the weird thing in the USA constitution about presumed innocence until PROVEN guilty? It seems to be turning the other way these days, innocent people needing to prove they are. I've said it before, I'll say it again. George Orwell was an optimist.