Driving

Click here to read my article about receiving to ticket.

My day (5/29/2008) started out much earlier than it usually does. I got up at 7 AM, took a shower, got dressed and left by 8 AM. I stopped at the bank and withdrew $200 and then on my way to Louisville I stopped and got me a coffee from Starbucks. I reached downtown at 8:45 AM and had to pay $6 to park. I was in the courthouse by 8:50 AM and was waiting outside the courtroom with a couple hundred people. They started letting people in the courtroom at 9 AM, as I entered the courtroom people had already bunched up at the beginning of the smallest bench isles I’ve ever seen. I walked around and stepped over a 30” wall to get a seat when the bailiff said “Don’t do that, that’s not a bar” I was already over so I just sat down and didn’t say anything. Then a short time later I was asked to move down to allow more people in. These benches were ridiculously narrow, like the backseat of a Porsche. I was somewhat nervous from just being in the position of waiting to defend myself and could feel it in my stomach.

At 9:10 AM the judge (Kevin W. Delahanty) entered the courtroom, everyone was asked to rise, a few words were said and everyone sat down. I saw one of my clients (Derwin Webb) in the courtroom who is an attorney, it looked as if he was there defending other people, I handle his website hosting and email. There were people already in the courtroom asking the scheduled visitors if they were going to plea innocent or guilty, then they had them sit down again. It was hard for me to hear (I don’t hear that well) with all of the commotion in the courtroom. At 9:15 AM the courtroom got quiet while the judge addressed everyone about the rules of the courtroom and what their options are when approaching the podium. Then it got loud again. Anyone who was not on the docket was asked to leave the courtroom to make room for more people. The judge began to call names to the podium and two other people who had already been calling names the whole time were still calling names.

At 9:40 AM my name was called by one of the people handling pre-judgment information. The gentlemen asked me how do I plea as I’m standing next to him and I said “Innocent”, he asked if I wanted to do community service or go to trial, I said “Are those my only two options?”. He said they were so I said “Go to trial”, he said OK and got up and said “I’m going to get your police officer and make sure he’s here for the trial”, the gentlemen walked passed me and headed out of the courtroom and I said “Do I just wait here?” he said “No have a seat your trial will be about 12:30”. So I sat down and waited. Lots of people were shuffled through the judge and the pre-judgment people, every time someone had to pass you, you had to compress yourself into your seat so they could get by.

I saw the officer who ticked me and Derwin Webb a couple of times in and out of the court room. As the courtroom thinned slightly we were asked to move again, so we all moved to the back of the courtroom. Then a short time later asked to move again. At 10:45 AM I need to use the restroom, while the judge was busy with other people I exited the courtroom to use the restroom, while in the hallway I saw Derwin again and I said “I saw you in 102” he asked what I was doing in there and I said “defending myself against a speeding ticket” he said “Do you need me in there, cause I’ll help you out?” I said “No, I got this one, I have plenty of evidence” he said “OK, well let me know if you need anything I’ll take care of you and call me about my site” I said “OK, thanks, talk to you later”. Back in the courtroom I was again waiting and listening to all of the other people approach the podium. From this point forward the officer who ticketed me was in the courtroom waiting like I was. Not once did he make eye contact with me, he couldn’t have missed me I was wearing my “Tech Support” t-shirt.

At 11:00 AM the judge took a break and the pre-judgement people were still working with people. At 11:25 AM I needed to use the restroom again (it was a large coffee), I was nervous if I left they wouldn’t let me back in or they would call my name and I would miss it but I went anyway and made it back 2 minutes before the judge came back into the court room. Everyone rose again and sat down. At 11:35 AM the judge called my name and as I rose to approach the podium he said “Have a seat Mr. Jones we’re going to move you to the end of the docket”.

The judge finally called me to the podium at 11:50 AM. I approached the podium as did the officer and the prosecuting attorney. He started by saying “Do you swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you God?” we both said yes. He asked the officer to present his statement, the officer stated his name his position he mentioned the calibration of the radar gun, the judge asked him about the ticket, he said that he observed me traveling at a high rate of speed when he got me on the radar and again observed me through his mirror. The judge asked about the conditions and the officer said there were no other cars around and that nothing had obstructed his view of me. The prosecuting attorney asked if the officer or I knew each other or if we had any grudges against one another and we both said no.

Then the judge turned to me and asked if I had any question for the officer, I said no. He instructed me to proceed with my statement, I started out by indicating I had an illustration of the incident and I handed one to the prosecuting attorney and one to the bailiff for the judge. The illustration I handed them was three pages, the last page was the incident written down as I remembered it, the second page was an illustration of positions 3 and 4, the first page was the important one that contained position 1 and 2.

I began to explain that Position 1 was the last point in which the officer could have got a reading of 51MPH from one of the cars in front of me because I was not doing 51. I explained that from that position the officer who was approximately 500 ft away could not have gotten an accurate read from my car because even if he had been using a more accurate Lidar gun instead of Radar gun the the beam at the distance is 2 ft wide and needs to be pointed at the facing part of the vehicle which the officer could not have possibly seem. I expected the officer to have video of the incident because on the ticket it says “Radar” and “In-Car-Camera”. His video would confirm what I was saying and would have shown all three cars passing him closely together, but he didn’t have his video, just his testimony. I was also wondering if the judge noticed just a few minutes earlier the officer indicated there were no cars around me yet I’m claiming there were with detail to their make and color.

At this point the prosecuting attorney said “I object to this document, it’s not an actual picture of the incident he placed these cars in these positions.” I became nervous because I went to all this trouble to accurately depict the situation and it never dawned on me that the judge might dismiss my illustration. The judge looked at me and said “This is a satellite image of the area and you have placed the cars in these positions?” I said “That is correct” The judge said “What does land look like here, is there a hill?” I said “There is a slight dip and that’s all” the judge asked me “Is this an accurate representation of all vehicles?” I said “Yes judge, It couldn’t be more accurate”. The judge looked at the prosecuting attorney and said “I’ll allow it”.

Then the prosecuting attorney and the officer began to look at my illustration while the judge asked me if I had anything else. I said “The red line indicates the line-of-site for the officer and he couldn’t see enough of my car to get a reading” I also pointed out that the vehicles in front of me were larger than my car. The judge asked if I had anything else, I said “The reason my speed is listed as Possibly 35 MPH is because I hadn’t yet looked at my speedometer. As I passed the parked police car there is a 35 MPH sign directly in front of his car which is when I confirmed I was doing 35 MPH. The prosecuting attorney said “Because you caught up to the other cars you must have been driving faster than 35 MPH” I said “No, the reason I closed on them was because when they saw the police car they slowed down abruptly closing the gap between us, I never slowed down.” The judge asked me if I had anything else, I said “I wasn’t driving over 35 MPH, the radar reading the officer received could not have been from my car, nor could he have received an accurate reading from my car at that distance with those two cars in front of me.”

The judge asked me if I had anything else, I said “No judge I don’t.” The judge asked the prosecuting attorney if they had anything else, he said “No we don’t”

The judge said something and the officer began to leave the courtroom, I looked at the judge and said “What just happened?” the judge looked at me and said “You won”, I looked at the prosecuting attorney who was smiling real big at me and then I looked at the bailiff who was also smiling at me, I looked at the judge and said “That’s it?” he said “That’s it” I said “Do I need to sign anything?” he said “No, your free to go.” I smiled real big and exited the courtroom. I assume what I didn’t hear the judge say was “Judgement is for the defendant”.

Several days later I asked Derwin how likely it was that I would win my trial, he said, “Congratulations! It is EXTREMELY RARE that someone wins a bench trial pro se. Hats off to you!”