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Indianapolis Tacks on Steep Fines for Challenging Traffic Tickets
Thursday, December 10th, 2009An Indianapolis attorney has filed a class action lawsuit against the city, claiming that traffic court judges are penalizing motorists who challenge traffic tickets by slapping them with additional fines ranging from $500 to $2,500. The fines are meant to discourage people who try to game the system by winning default judgments on legitimate tickets when the police officer who wrote it can’t make it into court. But it’s also a pretty strong incentive for people with legitimate complaints not to bother.
The fines are part of a broader campaign by the city to bring in more revenue from traffic fines, particularly parking tickets.
Because I know a guy who works for the prosecutor’s office, I decided not to challenge the last speeding ticket I had as he warned me of exactly this happening. They make it expensive to challenge and difficult to win, as I believe they’ll postpone your court date in order to summon the officer to court to testify against you.
Now we just need to combine this law with Red Light cameras and Speed Cameras and we have ourselves a flawless revenue stream!
#2 you’ll need tire depth cameras, too…
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/24/2463.asp
Broken-record alert:
More evidence of the auto-cannibalization of society. As real money becomes scarcer and credit evaporates into the ether, the State will still demand its pound of flesh come hell or high water, and with ever-increasing vigor.
It is important for every individual to understand this: one exists at the whim of the State. When the State decides one is no longer essential, one will no longer exist (unless fleeing to the wilderness is part of your plan — let me know how that works out for you).
The State will drain every penny possible from one’s bank account until one is completely marginalized and reduced to subsistence. It is evident from the grand scale, where government (i.e., mandatory) spending replaces private (i.e., voluntary) spending, to the petty scale where local State mafias extort the last blood from the local turnips.
There is no way out of this trap, except to put the pedal to the metal and get to the endgame as quickly as possible, which seems about where we’re headed.
/ramble
Cynical, you need to unplug the computer and go and listen to some happy Christmas music. Pleeeeasse!
“confronted with the witnesses against him”…”game the system”…same difference
I’m with Cynical here- these obscene fines are huge intrusions into our freedoms. I’ve had tenants bail on my property because of some bullshit traffic fines stacking up. Cops sit on the side of the road looking at radar guns to find violations, because they can’t even see a crime being committed. unbelievable. seat belt stings. traffic cameras.
Makes me wanna hang out at duncan donuts with some calipers and measure cop bmi- ‘sorry sir, you’re above the limits to be able to do your job… I’m gonna have to write a ticket.’
we need to fill squirt guns with the substances used to train drug dogs and spray police, political, and school administrators’ vehicles. we need to be more outraged at these intrusions.
I agree too Marty but Cynical still needs some happy time.
Trials are old fashioned. A good defendant comes to the courthouse ready to take his medicine and does not bog down the process with claims of innocence. They don’t let most felony cases go to trial these days. What makes anyone think they would tolerate a challenge to a traffic citation?
Good news, Stephanie Lazarus’ preliminary hearing is over and she will stand trial:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/lapd-detective-stephanie-lazarus-ordered-to-stand-trial-in-1986-murder-wont-face-death-penalty.html
The death penalty is off the table; apparently binding, torturing, and murdering someone in cold blood isn’t enough to warrant the death penalty. Had she committed a robbery at the same time, they would have had an aggravating circumstance. (I’m against the death penalty in general, but if you’re going to have it, might as well use it in a clear cut case like this)
For those unfamiliar with the case – Stephanie Lazarus is an LAPD detective. In 1986, she broke into the apartment of her ex-boyfriend and his new wife of three months, Sherry Rasmussen, when the wife was home alone. Stephanie tied her up, beat her, bit her, etc. and finally murdered her with her service weapon. The only thing stolen was the marriage certificate and the car, with the car being found a couple of blocks away.
Lazarus claimed to have lost her service weapon three weeks later. Despite the husband and victim’s parents pointing out that Lazarus had been harassing the victim for months at the hospital where she worked, detectives at the time protected Lazarus and successfully steered the “investigation” in other directions. They claimed it was a botched robbery (you know how the secondary market is for a good marriage certificate) and went so far as to taunt the parents by telling them they had been watching too much TV.
Something happened in the last year that Lazarus protectors quit or she angered the wrong person, so they reopened the case, got the DNA match from a bite on the victim’s arm, and filed charges. It looks like they’re really prosecuting this correctly, which is a welcome change.
Anyway, another data point in the “what happens when politically connected people commit violent crimes” category.
So when are these government goons just going to send roving gangs of thugs door to door for petty cash shakedowns? I mean, really. Apparently just the lack of revenue to match the amount of money they WANT to spend justifies all sorts of schemes to shakedown people.
Is there any accountability over these tin-star yokels? Oh, yeah, that’s supposed to be the legislatures, who write the laws. Too bad they’re too busy egging on the pocketbook pilferers to get them more money to buy reelection with…
How much would they fine the citizens to storm city hall
with pitchforks?
Just askin’.
This is simply another form of plea-bargaining: you are offered a reduced sentence in exchange for pleading guilty. The problem with these policies is that as the punishment you are threatened with if you don’t confess grows larger, and the police retain the latitude to lie and cheat to pressure you into confessing, there is a greater likelihood that you will falsely confess. Since these practices lead to more “convictions” and more revenue for the state, the trend may well accelerate until conventional wisdom is becomes: if you are confronted by the police, your odds are better if you run–or shoot first.
Then the state will either wise up, or hire more cops and buy bigger guns.
The state will never wise up. It doesn’t have to. It’s the state.
Dave, I thought about asking if anyone wanted to take odds on which of those would happen, but then I got depressed and had to stop typing.
Pay Up, Human ATM.
That’s rich! “Game the system?”
When you can’t make it to court, in almost every case that’s just too bad. You’ll have a summary judgement against you.
What’s good for the gander…
Who says there’s no due-process anymore? There’s definitely a process! First they drop your trousers, then they drop your drawers, then they bend you over….well I think we all know where it goes from here.
Like I needed another reason to avoid Indianapolis.
Oh joy.
I guess someone wants a raise, so they gotta steal the money come up with the funds somehow.
Tree.
Rope.
Judge.
Some assembly required.
Ye old Tree of Liberty is looking scruffy , gonna need some fertilizer soon …Lest it Perish
All you folks talking about storming the courthouse with pitchforks and fertilizing the Tree of Liberty, hate to break it to you but it is too late. Attempt to do this and you’ll be outgunned and worm food and you’ll be lucky if any news media even bothers to report it. I don’t know what the solution is, but that ain’t it.
Thanks JS, your concern for my health is touching.
I must go look at big boobs immediately.
:)
#10 | Michael Chaney — “Good news, Stephanie Lazarus’ preliminary hearing is over and she will stand trial…”
Sorry to piss on your parade Michael, but justice delayed is justice denied. My $0.02 anyways. Hope you’re right.
#23 | qaz — “All you folks talking about storming the courthouse with pitchforks and fertilizing the Tree of Liberty, hate to break it to you but it is too late.”
While I agree that this course of action is futile presently, I disagree with your timing. It is too soon, not too late. History is a revolving door — it will swing around again soon enough.
#12 Yizmo Gizmo, #23 qaz, #26 Cynical in CA
Maybe that’s the problem – we’re convinced (some are, at least) that storming the courthouse with a pitchfork, is a losing proposition…
“If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.” …
”And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms…”
Keep in mind, that the people that instigated, and then conducted the American Revolution comprised less than half of the population of the colonies – and they took on the most powerful country on earth – and won (by bankrupting that country)…
Just sayin’…
Indianapolis Tacks on Steep Fines for Challenging Traffic Tickets | The Agitator…
They don’t want you to question authority. Better get used to it….
Yeah, another racket they have in Waskum, Texas I like to bring up, when I was going the speed limit and Cpl. Lou Frazier of the Waskum police department alleged that I was going some 77/78 MPH, perhaps because he saw my out of state plate, as I was driving to Ft. Bragg, to kill people that don’t want speed traps in their country, sure made it pretty hard to go to my court date 30 days from the time of the ticket, ensuring that I would have to pay regardless,,,
Send me an email to goforward@safe-mail.net and I will send you a document that will stop their nonsense. And, no court appearance. Have I seen success using this, yes I have, many times.