As you may or may not be aware, California is broke. As a result, ticket issuance for the most mundane of violations is at an all time high. Brian and I use a couple simple rules of thumb to keep our records clean and our insurance happy!

So, you’ve been pulled over. Just take your ticket and deal with it later, right? Not for Brian and I. Brian has a pretty unique strategy which has worked for him in the past. When police talk to Brian, he pretends he knows nothing of what he’s done wrong and asks to pay for the ticket up front, right then and there. The reasoning behind this is that the cop, thinking that Brian is just going to pay his fine later on won’t take any notes. This will become crucial later. I, on the other hand, like to start writing down notes and taking pictures right then and there. This is helpful especially when you are far from home. Also, Brian and I are always respectful to police officers and there is no reason you shouldn’t be. They have a job to do and they do it with a certain degree of professionalism most of the time. They slip sometimes, but we don’t go the speed limit every day either. Also, politeness has been known to avoid the ticket all together.

After the incident, its time to do some research. The very first thing to do is to examine the citation thoroughly. The things you should look for are as follows:

• Check to see if the code the officer wrote you up for is quoted correctly. The words next to it have absolutely NO bearing on what the officer is citing you for. The only thing that the court looks at are the numbers. If you have been charged with speeding for example the line should look like this: 22350 Excessive Speed.
• Check the location of the ticket. If the officer has written down the location wrong you can claim you were never there (especially easy if you have pictures of the location you are at!)

• Check your information. If the officer has misspelled your name or anything related to your person, you may be able to claim that it wasn’t you! This is a little harder to do, and generally the court will issue you a corrected violation by mail.

Now, assuming all of that information is right, the next step is to request a continuance. The week of your appearance date, request a continuance either by going online and following the steps or going to the courthouse and speaking with the clerk. The longer amount of time you put between your eventual trial and the date of the violation, the better.

Next, after the continuance period is over it’s time to arraign. To do this go to the courthouse and talk to a clerk. You are going to plead Not Guilty, and request a Trial by Written Declaration. The clerk will then ask you to pay your fine (ugh) and give a form. Feel free to take it home. The Trial by Written Declaration will pit your written testimony against the officer’s written testimony. The hard part is, if the officer submits almost anything, he will win. Judges, for the most part, play on the same team as police. The trick to the written declaration is the hope that the officer won’t submit testimony in which case you win. Brian’s strategy for the written declaration relates back to his “where do I pay the fine” tactic. He in big bold Sharpie writes “NOT GIULTY” (sic) with the reasoning that judges feel bad for the mentally handicapped and don’t fine them. The crazy thing is that this has worked for him. Conversely, I try to collect and exhibit my evidence so that I have a reasonable chance of defeating any of the officer’s testimony. Either way is okay really. Once you turn in your Declaration you will receive the results by mail sometime later. Brian says it takes about a month but I’ve waited as long as three months.

When you receive the results a couple of things could have resulted. The best case is, of course, “All counts have been dismissed.” In that case, you are done. You will receive a refund of your fine by mail at a later date. If you had multiple offenses some may have been dismissed and some may have not. In that case you need to continue to the next step. In the worst case, the officer responded and you lost. Your fine will be forfeited to the State. Alas, all is not lost. A wonderful provision of the Trial by Written Declaration system is that if you do lose your case, you have the right to have a trail in person. You will need to talk to the clerk to exercise this right and schedule an appearance date.

At this point, everyone’s experience becomes a little different. It is all about collecting evidence and proving the officer wrong. All you need to do is prove that the officer’s testimony is flawed and that he doesn’t recall anything correctly. You will then ask the Judge for a dismissal due to lack of evidence. Hopefully, it won’t come to this point and you will have already won, as the trial process takes a lot of leg work in collecting evidence in order to win.

This guide is not intended as legal advice. If you are looking for legal counsel please ask an attorney or contact your local bar association.