On Wed, 5 Jan 2005 10:52:51 -0500, Walt Felix <Walt@Walt-n-Ingrid.Com>
wrote:
>
> They do the same in CT. He wrote me up for "14-96 Light affixed to
> license
> plate" Thing is general statue 14-96 has 28 subsections, none of which
> address a light affixed to a license plate. That's how I beat the ticket.
> But "DR CHALLENGER" is correct as far as, I was guilty of having non-DOT
> approved lamps. But the prosecuting attorney didn't know that so he just
> dismissed the charge. He also dropped the insubordination charge after I
> explained what had happened.
>
> I don't know how it is in other states but in CT, you usually didn't
> actually see the judge. What they did was you would go into a room with
> the
> prosecuting attorney and state your case. Most often, to speed up the
> process, he would then offer you a reduced charge & fine. If you
> accepted
> it, you paid the fine and was on your way. Thing is, allot of people
> would
> plead not guilty to every ticket they got to get a reduced fine. The
> courts
> were overloaded with cases so they changed the system. Now, if you get a
> ticket, most of the time, if you just pay the ticket, they won't levy
> points
> against your license. If you fight the ticket, most often, you'll get a
> reduced fine but now they nail you with the points and court fees. Quite
> frequently the court fees are more than the original ticket unless you
> being
> charged with something like running down a nun and her seeing eye dog ;-)
>
Here in NJ you see the prosecuter first and you can plea bargain. Which is
what you were doing. But the plea is for a no point violation. For
speeding you would plea to obstruction of traffic and go b4 the judge and
state on the record that you were infact obstructing traffic. Then you'd
pay the fine plus court fees. But recxently our former gay governor placed
a surcharge of $250 for anyone who goes to court to fight a ticket. Not
sure if you have to pay it if you beat the ticket though.
-- -Droo
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