its kinda long

On the 20th i was headed down to a party on a sailboat. I went over the coronado bridge in san diego and I got pulled over for doing 66 in a 50. I said to myself ill be alright, if I was on my bike I know i probably would have been going a bit faster so Im glad I was driving that night. anyway the police officer asked me for the normal things and I have a set of papers from the dmv because i just got my M licence. he goes away with my expired photo ID and then my papers. He comes back in about 12 minutes  or so and askes me to step out of the car. I get out and he says im going to have to impound your car and I said why? he tells me that my licence is expired and it is illegal to drive on an expired licence i told him the papers i gave him were the only ones that the dmv gave me and he told me they were not complete. Then he told me that he wasnt trying to ruin my night and calls the tow truck. I finally got him to let another person that was in my car drive and he calls the tow truck off and gives me a ticket for mistameanor expired licence bs and  i went to the dmv today. They told me "oops" we made a mistake and didnt give you the proper paperwork. so now I have a good licence and a paper saying i payed for the licence on time 3 months ago. I still have to convince a judge that i had a licence and the dmv made a mistake so I dont get a mistameanor on my record.


I want to come up with a good case to fight this because even though I was speeding I should not have to go through all this trouble.


any ideas you may have thank you ahead of time

Nepix

Uh.  Show him or her the paper the DMV gave you or show him or her your valid driver's license.  The judge can not only read, but sees about 1000 of these a year.  It should get dismissed with court costs, at the very minimum. 

You don't have to "convince " the judge, just show the evidence.

you can't be lying if you can prove you had everything up to date.  If you show you were up to date prior to that night, then the cop did as he should have, and the judge should be reasonable.

Just show up on time and don't give the judge attitude. Be firm only if necessary.

good luck.

JAKe D answered while I was typing. He's a lawyer or somethin. take heed.

Quote from: Jake D on January 23, 2007, 02:43:37 PM
Uh.  Show him or her the paper the DMV gave you or show him or her your valid driver's license.  The judge can not only read, but sees about 1000 of these a year.  It should get dismissed with court costs, at the very minimum. 

Also, I forgot to mention, there is very little chance you'll have to go before a judge.  The prosecutor has the ability to dismiss this case.  Noli.  

A local lawyer would do it for you for super cheap and spare you from having to go to court.  I do it for a hundy.  

$100 for the DMV's F-up?  what would court costs be?

A benji is a bit steep just to not show up to court.

is there anyway he could get out of it scot free?  Man that sucks. Why would he be liable for anything?

Court costs vary by county.
In cabarrus county (known for super low taxes and good schools) you're not getting out of court if you had a ticket for sneezing which gets dismissed without $100 for court costs.
Mecklenberg - where I live, I have gotten out of accidents with nothing but proof of paying off the other driver for damage.
Oh yea I had like 7 offenses of which I was definetly guilty of atleast 5.
No insurance, no registration, no inspection, no plates - These were all yes ... not there per say cos I couldn't or didn't want to find it in my bag, I blamed the darkness so I didn't get arrested, no licence in NC (had a CA one), failure to stop in time and there was one more - unsafe lane change - though those 2 can probably be argued - I bumped into the back of this old lady's rental car.
I paid the old lady's rental car company (212 bucks) for the damn rear bumper, showed that to the DA and got most of the rest taken care of with my truck's registration and papers (saying I got rid of that bike - which I did).
Cool.
Srinath.

alright this shouldnt be bad as I thought, I have all paperwork proving everything. do you guys think court fees would be over 100 dollars?

I'd go your your local courthouse and ask them.  Never hurts to find some info.

Court costs around here range anyway from $25, $26.50, $28.50 (muni courts) to $56.00 (in the Circuit or county court).  They shouldn't be that bad. 

sounds like a 'fix-it" ticket, which in CA has a $10 fee...you will not get your court costs reimburse. too expensive to get a lawyer to handle it for you vs the court cost so you'll just have to suck it up (against my principle of biting my nose off to spite my face but it is what it is).

alright this is going to be easy then. thanks guys