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Originally posted by trapper189:

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The members that recommended that I get legal representation. Can I ask what specifically they do that I can't do in such a situation? What am I paying for?

Call one and ask. They’ll tell you what they’ll do and what it will cost.

Best advice, find out who represents in that court and see what your options are.

I haven't followed this thread extremely closely, but based on a couple of things, why not ask your buddy within the court system who he would recommend for a lawyer and then make the call. Surely he's come across the good and bad.

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Originally posted by Beanhead:

The members that recommended that I get legal representation. Can I ask what specifically they do that I can't do in such a situation? What am I paying for?

Lawyers (should) know the procedures, how to present your facts properly in court. I don't know about small towns in Georgia, but when I lived in Chicago, there were a few lawyers who only worked traffic court and they rarely, if ever, lost a case. They and the traffic court judges knew each other, the lawyers knew many of the cops and all of the prosecutors. Using one of these lawyers was just about a guaranteed win, and at the time I was an AAA member, so I was reimbursed by AAA for legal fees, just had to send them the receipt from the lawyer.

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Originally posted by Beanhead:

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Originally posted by Poacher:
I travel 34 every week day. Set my cruise on 61 and just drive right by the deputies. Once on 74 where it turns to 50, I set it on 56, and drive right by the PTC cops trapping at Gilroys-Got-It.
Not stopped once.

There are so many speed traps around here...I do that literally myself. When I go up 54, I just set the cruise. PTC is ridiculous. You can drive 1/4 mile and see 3 cops right there by Race Trac.

I don't speed which is why I was incredulous...and at 71 mph?! I even set my Waze to beep me when I am above the speed limit to check. My app really only gets me when it changes to 65 from 70 on 285.

When I cross Line Creek it’s 45 period until I get to the 50 zone on 74!

It sounds like you have a good plan in place. Your buddy knows the players and knows how the system works...he should be able to give you good advice about how to proceed. It sounds like you're also in a good place that the officer wrote you for less than 15 over, so there won't be any points either way, only the fine.

I'm not sure what fines are there, but around here I think they're about $170 these days. I highly doubt you'd be able to find an attorney to work your case for that.

If your friend says try it on your own, I'd say go for it. Be respectful and polite, just like you've been here, and present your position and evidence directly. The worst that can happen is you're in the same position you're in now.

Depending upon how things work there (ask your friend), you might even try meeting with the prosecutor before going to trial and showing him the evidence you have. Tell him you didn't want to argue it on the roadside, but wanted to make him aware of the facts before trial. I've been on the other side of it a few times, and he'll often meet with defendants before trial and show them our evidence to avoid wasting the court's time. I don't see why it wouldn't work in the opposite direction if you have a compelling case. He might review what you have and the video from the squad car and decide to drop it altogether. Or he might tell you to pound sand and fight it in court...just depends on what kind of person he is and what all the evidence shows. But no prosecutor wants to go into court with a losing case.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Originally posted by Beanhead:

The members that recommended that I get legal representation. Can I ask what specifically they do that I can't do in such a situation? What am I paying for?

Lawyers (should) know the procedures, how to present your facts properly in court. I don't know about small towns in Georgia, but when I lived in Chicago, there were a few lawyers who only worked traffic court and they rarely, if ever, lost a case. They and the traffic court judges knew each other, the lawyers knew many of the cops and all of the prosecutors. Using one of these lawyers was just about a guaranteed win, and at the time I was an AAA member, so I was reimbursed by AAA for legal fees, just had to send them the receipt from the lawyer.

Those guys worked for the bond money which was usually $100.00 in most cases for simple infractions such as blowing a stop sign or late on a red light. And you are correct, they only worked Traffic Court. So let's say each one would handle 20 cases a day which is on the low side. You can see how much they were making. Knock off say 10 percent for the Judge and there you are. A nice little pay day. I don't even know how many cases each one would handle in a day but they were making a fortune. Of course some of them went to jail because they were too "close" to the Judge. Operation Grey Lord in which I'm proud to say, I made the very first arrest.

I'm glad sound advice is coming in for you, and I do hope you prevail. I'm certainly not an advocate of typical law abiding citizens being ticketed, except for egregious violations. I feel law enforcement supporting people can be turned to quite the opposite by simply having received a ticket they feel is unwarranted.

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Originally posted by Bulldog7972:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

when I lived in Chicago, there were a few lawyers who only worked traffic court and they rarely, if ever, lost a case. They and the traffic court judges knew each other, the lawyers knew many of the cops and all of the prosecutors. Using one of these lawyers was just about a guaranteed win

Those guys worked for the bond money which was usually $100.00 in most cases for simple infractions such as blowing a stop sign or late on a red light. And you are correct, they only worked Traffic Court. So let's say each one would handle 20 cases a day which is on the low side. You can see how much they were making. Knock off say 10 percent for the Judge and there you are. A nice little pay day. I don't even know how many cases each one would handle in a day but they were making a fortune. Of course some of them went to jail because they were too "close" to the Judge. Operation Grey Lord in which I'm proud to say, I made the very first arrest.

Ancient history: Did you ever know, or hear of, a Chicago traffic court lawyer named Mel Cantor?

A friend got a ticket in Louisina for a DUI. The "right" lawyer turned it into a seat belt violation. {I am not advocating for drunk driving".}

I got a ticket near Pahrump, NV long ago. It was like driving on Mars. If I had run off the road, I'd have hit nothing and there were no other cars out there. Cop got me at 90 in a 70, told me it was a holiday weekend, state is broke, I'm from AZ and, well, he got me. Even told me to call one of those billboard lawyers in Vegas who would get it knocked down to a parking ticket for me. And that's what I did and it worked.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Originally posted by Bulldog7972:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

when I lived in Chicago, there were a few lawyers who only worked traffic court and they rarely, if ever, lost a case. They and the traffic court judges knew each other, the lawyers knew many of the cops and all of the prosecutors. Using one of these lawyers was just about a guaranteed win

Those guys worked for the bond money which was usually $100.00 in most cases for simple infractions such as blowing a stop sign or late on a red light. And you are correct, they only worked Traffic Court. So let's say each one would handle 20 cases a day which is on the low side. You can see how much they were making. Knock off say 10 percent for the Judge and there you are. A nice little pay day. I don't even know how many cases each one would handle in a day but they were making a fortune. Of course some of them went to jail because they were too "close" to the Judge. Operation Grey Lord in which I'm proud to say, I made the very first arrest.

Ancient history: Did you ever know, or hear of, a Chicago traffic court lawyer named Mel Cantor?

Lol, yes I did. He prowled the halls of Traffic Court for years. He would go up to people standing in the hallways and ask them if they needed an attorney. If they said yes, he became their attorney for that case which was an almost guaranteed win. I don't remember if he was one of the attorneys that was caught up by Operation Grey Lord though. But he was a fixture there. We used to laugh about him because his win record was "unexplainably" 100 %. Her was always a gentleman though.

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Originally posted by Bulldog7972:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

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Originally posted by Bulldog7972:

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Originally posted by V-Tail:

when I lived in Chicago, there were a few lawyers who only worked traffic court and they rarely, if ever, lost a case. They and the traffic court judges knew each other, the lawyers knew many of the cops and all of the prosecutors. Using one of these lawyers was just about a guaranteed win

Those guys worked for the bond money which was usually $100.00 in most cases for simple infractions such as blowing a stop sign or late on a red light. And you are correct, they only worked Traffic Court. So let's say each one would handle 20 cases a day which is on the low side. You can see how much they were making. Knock off say 10 percent for the Judge and there you are. A nice little pay day. I don't even know how many cases each one would handle in a day but they were making a fortune. Of course some of them went to jail because they were too "close" to the Judge. Operation Grey Lord in which I'm proud to say, I made the very first arrest.

Ancient history: Did you ever know, or hear of, a Chicago traffic court lawyer named Mel Cantor?

Lol, yes I did. He prowled the halls of Traffic Court for years. He would go up to people standing in the hallways and ask them if they needed an attorney. If they said yes, he became their attorney for that case which was an almost guaranteed win. I don't remember if he was one of the attorneys that was caught up by Operation Grey Lord though. But he was a fixture there. We used to laugh about him because his win record was "unexplainably" 100 %. Her was always a gentleman though.

I was referred to Mel Cantor by a lawyer friend, who told me that Mel was "The Man" for traffic court. The way it worked:

I was informed that Mel Cantor was a former traffic court judge (magistrate, whatever they were called) who had been removed from the bench for some sort of mis-behavior. A dapper, well-dressed, guy in an expensive suit. He became a one-man law firm doing nothing but traffic court defense. His "office" was an answering machine at his home. If you got a ticket, you called Mel's number and left a message. He returned your call, told you to meet him at court on your court date. He took your ticket, glanced at it, did not ask you what happened, but told you what happened at the time of your alleged offense.

Then, while everyone else was waiting to their turn, Mel walked up to the front, had a few words with the clerk, and your case was the next one called. You walked up with Mel, the judge looked down from the bench, and said "Good morning, counselor."

Mel said something like "Good morning, judge. My client didn't do it."

Judge replied, "Of course your client didn't do it. Not guilty! Next case, please."

You walked out of the courtroom with Mel, paid him, got a receipt, submitted it to AAA who reimbursed you for legal costs, and all was well with the world.

This was my personal experience, and also the experience of everybody I knew, who used Mel's services. Classic Chicago political machinery. This was when I lived in Chicago, back in the days of Richard J. "Da Mare" Daley.

Yes sir, that was the way things worked back then. Which is one of the reasons why I stopped writing traffic tickets a couple of months after I got on the job. You would go to Traffic Court, sign in and sit there for a few hours during which you would see what you described go on repeatedly. So after a couple of months of seeing that, I stopped writing tickets. What was the point.

One thing to check is how your state and courts do traffic tickets. In my place, for minor violations, the court will defer a ticket if you don't get another ticket for a certain amount of time.

If the point is to fight it because you were not wrong then I get that side of it too. You could show the court you and your families phone data and they might or might not go with it (sadly based on the judge and all that) or the cop might not show up.

Third option and I'm not specifically recommending any of them, if you are just looking to prevent this from happening to someone else, I'd call the department that issued you the ticket ( like a higher-up, not the actual cop) and have a discussion with them about making sure they performed the proper pre and post checks on their equipment, could there be a malfunction of their equipment etc. It could be an actual equipment error however there's other stuff that goes into it as well depending on the method used to measure your speed. If you approach it as a "hey I'm just trying to make sure about what happened as I honestly don't think I was speeding thing", and not from a negative standpoint, they might actually check their stuff or make their guys do checks they weren't doing, might turn out the unit needs servicing and calibration, etc. Some of the things that play into it are if they observed you or if it was another operator who may have guided them in, were there multiple vehicles near you and they may have picked up the wrong one, etc.

Any of those can leave you jaded or disappointed with the system, but just some thoughts.

Court date is still upcoming and I still have the original plan. Go with my friend to court. Ask for a pre-trail and discuss it with the solicitor.

That said, my buddy did say he had a case in court today similar to mine. The defendent had paperwork from their insurance company but the judge did not even want to look at it. Said radar is scientific whereas what the insurance company provide is not scientific. He ruled that the city provided sufficient evidence to find her guilty.

Is this the mask thing again? Your science isn't as good as mine?!

So, the department of insurance of the state is letting insurance company use, in the eyes of the courts, a Magic 8 ball, to set premium on a policy?

Or

That judge, when he travels, uses a non-scientific method when he uses Google maps or Waze to calculate what route to use and his eta. Non-scientific method..like math?!

Sorry to vent but I am starting to see how this is going to go.

IMO the only way to beat a speeding ticket is if you can find a lawyer that knows the local court system and has a proven method of beating or pleading down the speeding charge.

I did a lot of driving mainly central and west Texas at one of my jobs in the 80's and my employer understood the reason and would pay to have attorneys beat the tickets for us. Some were beatable and some weren't. We learned the areas/counties that couldn't be defeated in and avoided speeding in those areas of the state.

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Originally posted by Beanhead:

That said, my buddy did say he had a case in court today similar to mine. The defendent had paperwork from their insurance company but the judge did not even want to look at it. Said radar is scientific whereas what the insurance company provide is not scientific. He ruled that the city provided sufficient evidence to find her guilty.

Sure the radar gun is scientific. BUT, only as much as it's pointed in the right direction and only picks up your car. ALSO, only if it is properly calibrated. ALSO, your GPS is scientific as well.

There is no room for error with your GPS whereas there is room for both human and calibration error with the radar gun.

Please keep us posted.

PS: I have a front & rear dash cam that records GPS location and speed. It also records audio so that if my Valentine One laser/radar detector goes off, the sound when I am hit by radar will be recorded by the dash cam along with my exact speed at that moment. I've never had to "prove" I wasn't speeding but I bet it would be "scientific" enough to prove my case if I were in front of an impartial judge.

I once got a totally BS ticket for going straight in a left turn-only lane. The right lane was full of tractor trailers and all the signs were to the right of them, so I could not see them until I got to the intersection, I saw the sign there, signaled to move into the right lane, a truck let me in and that was the lane I was in when I went through the intersection. Cop was a total a-hole. Went to court, cop had no idea who I was, had to hold his notes to his nose, he was so blind. Judge said I crossed a solid line to make the lane change. I said that's not what I was charged with. He said, "You are now. Guilty, goodbye." I filed an appeal to go downtown and make that township lose their tax collector for a few hours. I had photos, measurements, everything. Judge didn't care, said "his eyes are better than yours. Guilty, good bye." Cop was so blind he should not have been allowed to drive. He even commented to the clerk about wearing his sunglasses indoors, "Can't see with 'em, can't see without 'em."

Get the officers notes from the prosecutor. They should detail his radar/lidar information(s/n and TF s/n). They should also include his tracking history which should have his speed estimate description of your vehicle and radar distances. Officers are trained to estimate vehicle speeds and distances and those are useful things when going to court. Ask about his radar/lidar certification dates as well.

What did the local attorney you called say?

My otherwise really great 17yo son got a ticket for $253. I was going to have him take a traffic class, but it would cost money and still count against our insurance. The local attorney charged me $350, the judge made it a judicial warning, with no court costs, no fine, no ticket on his record.

When I called, the attorney said that was the best case scenario, he said the worst case would be the judge would withhold adjudication, we’d pay the fine and court costs, but it wouldn’t count against our insurance.