So I go before the Edwardsville Magistrate. The cops show up. We go through the stuff, he offers for me to plead guilty to a charge that will get me no points, no insurance, but I still have to pay the $103. I say, no thanks.

The following is a nearly exact transcript:

Spade: Well, sir, I went back and measured the sign and it is shorter than the 7 feet stated in the PA Codes.

Judge:*looks at officers Well, I'm sure you folks will go measure it. How short can it be?

Spade: It's 6 foot 6 inches, sir.

Judge: Welllll, I could see if it was really short, like 4 foot, but that's rather close.

Spade: Sir, I've heard of the ATF sending people to jail for firearms that are one inch short of the regulated length.

Judge: Well, I'm going to find you guilty, and you can appeal that at the courthouse if you like.

Oh, it's "close" enough for the fuckin' state, but if my rifle was 12.5 inches, sure as shit the ATF would send me to Club Fed.


And the appeal costs $45, nonrefundable of course, because you know, I should give money to the state in order to get an appeal.

Fuck trying to do this on my own, I'm going to call my Uncle and see if he can drive up and help out.

Balls.

If I'm held to bizarre standards by the State, then I can hold them to bizarre standards.

And I have the time, and my parents will lend me the $45.

Keep fighting it.  Sounds like they're ignoring the law...
Try not to piss off the appeals judge, just explain that you could not see the sign and upon further inspection you discovered that the sign was posted below the minimum legal height in your state.   If your tone is polite and clear your chances will improve.

it's worth a try.

Hey, I'm glad you fought.  The more people who stand up to this crap, the less money they take in and the more it costs them to run their system and the sooner it will collapse.  If it was a protection racket run by the mob, you'd fight them.  I know it costs you time & money, but standing up to an asshole judge who thinks he is the law is priceless.

6'6" does not equal 7' as is the letter of the law.  Go see if the weasels fix the sign before your next court date.

How in the world do you equate the ATF and it's regualtions to your local traffic court? Did you really expect the old "the ATF says I can't do this" defense to work!?! BAAAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

Borrow $45.00 from your parents BAAAAWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Fight the power![;D] (heheheheh)

Well, sir, I'll gladly plead guilty if you send me the $103 for the bill and pay my increase in insurance.

Good doggy, roll over. Here's a biscuit.

Spade,

Good luck to ya.  
[analogy]
The City of Minneapolis won't issue a CCW to anyone unless you take them to court over it.  They always cave because of that annoying 2nd Amendment, but not until after you spend about $2500 (renewable annually).  
[/analogy]
You may be RIGHT about it, but it will probably cost you.

Just curious, Spade.  Did you fail to stop at  the stop sign?

spade I am half way responsible for telling you about the Ht. requirement and I will chip in 20 bucks to help in the appeal if you go forward and file it.
I think you could win with the higher court no problem and the judge that ignored the law can get reprimanded.
Fuck that judge that ignored the statute and ignored the law ,he broke his oath as a judge by ignoring the Ht. requirement in the statute.

I missed the first part of this. But, if the law says the sign[b]must[/b]be certain, specified height-fvck  'em!!! Appeal it. I'dcontribute to the $45. for entertainment value alone if you want to stand up for yourself. What about contacting TV station's 'investigative reporting team' ???
Go for it!!!

FIGHT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

good luck

And use that arguement too, it is a winner.

TXLEWIS

And, you should inform the state's Attorney General as well as the board of judicial conduct (or equivalent) of the judge's failure to follow the law.  

choose your battles wisely.  is a mere $103 bucks plus another 45 worth going after half and inch?  you might want to save your money incase the IRS or some other major court event happens.  i'd say get over it and move on. but thats just my .02 cents

Was the judge White?  Maybe he doesn't like spades!

Fight it. There was a kid recently here in Ohio who fought a traffic citation all the way to the State Supreme Court on a minor technicality such as this. He won.

[img]www.ar15.com/members/albums/SPECTRE%2Fkwikext%2Egif[/img]

Just pay your tax and get on with your life. I would hate to think of Boss Hogg the judge and cleatus the cop not getting a new radar gun for tax collection because you fought the system.

spectre, nice sig pic

txlewis

Right back at ya, Yours is pretty nice too !!!! [sex]

That's the operative part of all this. Had you agreed, they would have found you guilty of something like a broken taillight. No points, no insurance increase. [b]They just want their $103.[/b]

Of course, since you turned them down, you do need to find the $45 and appeal, with the state codes hand, and in all likelyhood, a signed affidavit from some sort of official height measurer (a surveying company perhaps) that clearly states that the sign is improperly displayed.  Good chance you'll still lose.

These revenue generation tickets are a cottage industry here in PA. There's a small arts community near me that makes most of their revenue from parking tickets in the spring/summer/early fall (New Hope, PA). In the winter time they run a BS speed trap (a very short section of raod marked 35 MPH between the 25 MPH town limit and the 45 MPH open raod limit).

They park a couple of cars there and pull anybody going faster than 35 over. After they tell you that you were speeding, they give you the "it wasn't that much over (or "gee, you're a local") speech and offer to just write an equipment ticket for $91. I know at least a dozen locals who've payed the $91 ( I found this out after I had been caught).

Guess it's tough to support a 15 man PD in a town with less than 1500 residents.

Fight the man, man!

Read unintended consequences and fantasize. It will make you [red]feel[/red] better.

No points equals no insurance increase. Suck it up and pay the $103.

Pick you battles man. You can't wint them all and you ain't gonna win this one.

Save that fight for something else.

There used to be this little thing called "personal accountability."  It was something only individuals had, and it was a basis by which we judged honesty, integrity, and self-worth.  Persons who did something wrong would admit to it, take their punishment, and would feel better for doing so, knowing that they "did the right thing."

Now, we have the reasoning of "it's the principle of the matter".  "No, that extra six inches in height on that big red octagonal sign wouldn't have made a difference to my seeing it, your honor, but it's not up to standard, so why should I be?"

Would you honestly feel the same if you had the right away, and somebody blew through the intersection and creamed you?  Just something to think about...

Thanks for the input taxman.

pay the ticket. drive carefully. buy some ammo and pumpkins. proceed to the range. quit yer whining.

You need to fight it all the way!  I have had lots of traffic tickets in PA.  Here is my advice:

1.  Get a photo of the stop sign before they raise it.  Be sure that you are standing in the photo so the judge can say, "Well, Spade you are 6 feet tall and I can clearly see that this sign is too short" or whatever.  The point is to have a scale in there so they know the sign is short.  Measuring tape would be better.

2.  The local magistrates are a bunch of peons.  They don't even need a law degree--all they need is to be "elected."  So don't worry about the magistrate.  That he ignored the law is no surprise.

3.  I found that when you appeal, you go in front of a real judge who also sometimes arraigns real criminals.  The appeals judge will follow the letter of the law.  Whereas, if you told the magistrate some sob story, there is a SMALL chance the magistrate would let you off, if you tell the real judge a sob story, no matter how true or valid it is, he is going to stick with the letter of the law.

4.  Finally, this is probably the most important, and most fun.  Find out when they have the traffic hearings at the court of appeals.  It is probably one day a week and lasts a few hours.  It is a public courtroom, so go there and watch the cases proceed.  Pay attention to who wins their case and who loses and why.  This will help you formulate your own strategy and you will not look like a dumbass when it's your turn because you will already be familiar with the proceedings and protocol.

Another thing, is that since the appeals court takes cases from the entire county, the cop will have to travel farther to get to the trial.  For your "trial" at the local kangaroo court, the cop only had to drive a couple miles.  The county courthouse is probably a much longer drive.  When I went, I'd say upwards of 40% of the cops didn't bother showing up to prosecute.

Good luck!

-Nick Viejo.

You're such an idiot.  He ALL ABOUT accountability.  EVERYONE EXCEPT HIM has to be accoutable.  Sheese [;D]

Isn't it a perfectly reasonable argument that he should be required to stop (or whatever the sign was) if the sign was 7' tall, but should be allowed to blow through it if it was 6'6" tall?

For people like him, it's all about pointing fingers and trying to blame other people for his mistake.  Did he SEE the stop sign at 6'6"?  OF COURSE he did!  Did he KNOWINGLY break the law?  OF COURSE he did.

Should he get off?? If he is a weasel, absolutely - he should have that right, because it is the State's job to follow their own rules.  If he is a man - absolutely not!  

It is up to him to decide whether he is a weasel or a man.

Yeah, in theory he's guilty of a crime. The city is also guilty of violating the rules which this crime is based upon.

However, if you want to get technical, he ran a stop sign that is not up to code and therefore invalid. Had it been a square orange sign that said ALTO, would he still be guilty in the eyes of the law? If the law says that a stop sign must be hexagonal, red, at least 7" tall and say STOP then something not meeting this criteria must not be a stop sign.

He's already gone this far, so I say keep fighting it. The way I see it, he's only holding the city government accountable in the same way that they would hold us accountable. It's the same telling a judge, "Yeah, the speed limit sign said 55 but I was only going 60 and that's close enough".

The law is the law is the law.

Hmm, appeal could go one of two ways, I would guess.

1) The judge says: the law is the law. If the state (or city since you didn't specify whether you were being charged under state or local law) wants to collect revenue and charge you with an offense, it will be required to strictly comply.

2) The judge says: the law is the law. The purpose of the law at bar is to make sure that the signs are clearly visible to traffic. You saw the sign. The law did not fail its purpose in your particular case. you are guilty.

Of course I don't know the details of your incident and without more these are only wild guesses but assuming I have the facts right, this could go either way.

If you have been charged under state law, there may very well be case law available on this point. For $45 it might be worth it as a matter of principle but on the other hand you might feel crappy if you lose after making a production about being right.

Although the ATF might make a huge stink about a fracion of a centimeter, you and I both know that it's a double standard and that life's not fair. I might be inclined to roll over and let Caesar just have his freakin money. Then I would go back to my underground bunker and hide so that the SS doesn't have any reason to bother me...but that's just me...good luck.

Shoulda read the original thread.

I [i]never[/i] saw the stop sign because a truck was parked in front of it. (Illegally parked)

Now, if the ticket was the $25 that the statue says, I'd pay up and be done.

But $103 of extra stuff? $20 for the Judicial Computer Program? That's a fucking tax. I won't pay that. $103 is a good chunk of my months rent. Nor did I "blow" through the stop sign, since 20 mph is hardly "blowing" through anything.

But way to make assumptions, cockbasket.

Yup, I got pulled over once (well, actually several times). And, that is what they tried to do to me. The cop looked at my lisence and saw I was from out of town and asked me where I was headed and I told him "Fort Lauderdale." So, he wrote me a non-traffic citation for a little under $100.

He then says I can pay by by sending the money to the address listed. Of course, at this point the cop is assuming I was just apssing through town and will simply mail them a check. Well, he was wrong...I was going to be back up in the area in a few weeks.

I looked it up and found out that if I fixed the "cause" of the citation and went to the courthouse, I could show the proof and pay a fee of something like $10-20. So, that's exactly what I did when I came back a few weeks later. I ended up paying the reduced fee...but, they didn't get the nearly $100 they wanted.

I could have fought it, but I was technically breaking the law...so, that woulda been pointless.

On an intersting side note: I'll have to dig into it further. But, I believe most of Florida's speed limit signs are technically invalid under FL Statutes. But, as I said there may be something I'm missing. So, I'll have to check into it further. If you're going over 55 in a non-residential area or 30 in a residential area (sign, no sign, or invalid sign) it is still a violation.

Maybe he didn't find the original thread.

In this thread you seem to be basing your defense on illegal stop sign, not illegally parked vehicle that obscured the too short stop sign.

Yes most places now do this $20 deposit, $20 Victim-Witness Fund, $10 State Crime Lab. etc. etc. I think part of it is to avoid the system like some places have, 1/2 to the State, 1/2 to the locality the ticket was issued in, and no say on where the money goes.

Then again it's "more fair" to have people that were using up Court or criminal justice resources have to finance for those services, than to jack up my property taxes to pay for those services.  

20 mph through a stop sign sure seems a lot quicker if you "t-bone" another car.

You've made up a new word.

In that case I am an idiot (since I never saw the original thread).  I simply gathered that it was about running a stop sign - and your argument was about the HEIGHT of the sign.



So it wasn't about the height of the sign?

The WHY in the world are you talking about the height of the stop sign and the ATF.  Why are you not just stating the simple fact that a large truck was blocking the sign?!?

I'm confused.  Where is the original thread?

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