I got a phone call Friday afternoon while I was driving back home from San Antonio from my buddy James. I mentioned him back in November in one of my Daily Dose blogs that had to do with a speeding ticket and how James is going to enter a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Well that court date has sneaked up on me, James has to be in court Tuesday morning at 8:30 AM for his “appearance “and answer the charge of speeding.
So we had a good discussion while I was driving back home. James is no stranger to this JP court; he has made a few appearances in the 10 years I’ve known him at this court house. He hasn’t ever had a case dismissed or been found not guilty but he has the time and energy to screw with the system. Each time he has tickets he demands a jury trial, which is his right. He also puts up a pretty rigorous defense but he’s yet to convince a jury that he wasn’t guilty. So James would rather go through the appearance, pre-trial conference, motions hearings and then the trial just to bog the system down.
He and I are of the same opinion that the police are nothing short of a gang of highway robbers sent out by the courts to round up people they can rob at the court house. The gang leader, also known as judge, makes a pretty tidy amount of money from these traffic tickets. Most of the time people will just pay the ticket than be bothered with the hassle, the fines are set so that people can pay them and justify not having to miss work in order to fight the ticket. If you miss work to fight the ticket and lose you end up taking a double hit in the wallet.
Those previous times James based his defenses on things like the radar or ladar device may not have been calibrated properly or that the officer may not have tested the device prior to his shift. Another defense he used was that he just going with the “flow of the traffic” and was singled out from a group of cars and that the officer had profiled him because he had a newer model sports car, indicating that he money to pay his tickets.
While those could have been true, the jury seemed to always believe the officer and he was found guilty. This time though James is going to attack the law, because up until now James didn’t know that the speed signs didn’t apply to him. That’s right, James and every other Texan driving their own personal vehicle are not subject to the posted speed signs. I won’t go into all the details again; I covered that back in November. Here is the link to that Daily Dose in case you missed it and would like to read the details. https://steemit.com/blog/@sultnpapper/daily-dose-of-sultnpapper-11-17-17-not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity-plea-for-a-speeding-ticket
This ticket represents a real good chance of the jury breaking James’s losing streak in court. It won’t be hard to show the jury the law; it is printed in black and white, and comes from the state transportation code. The only possible hurdle to get over is the juror’s mind set, if they are truly honest with themselves they will end up admitting that James is correct and find him not guilty if the case goes to trial. This isn’t a new law by the way, it has been in place for quite a while, and the problem is nobody reads the laws. We accept what we are told by the authorities and never bother to check for ourselves.
So, when the Judge asks James on Tuesday how he pleads James is going to plead “not guilty by reason of insanity”, no James is not insane. That plea will surely get a question directed back at James regarding the “insanity” portion of the plea. James’s response will be that he is not insane. The insanity is on the participants representing the state of Texas in the case. That includes the prosecutor and the officer who wrote James the ticket, he wants to tell them they are FXING nuts, but I think he will keep enough control to just tell them they are crazy, based on what the law actually reads.
We are expecting some bad weather for Monday and Tuesday, with ice and snow and I hope we get. I have to be out of town next week and I won’t be able to be there in court unless the weather will prevent me from leaving on Monday. I flat messed up; I thought his court date was the following week. So hopefully we get bad weather and the court will be closed or I can’t leave town and can make it to the court house.
So the insanity plea is just around the corner now, we will see where it leads. I’ll keep you posted.
Until next time,
@sultnpapper
Come see me at https://sola.ai/sultnpapper
upcoin.com/?ID=859ba2cf
All the best to your friend!
How are you finding Sola though? Is it worth signing up ?
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Thanks. Sola is okay, have earned about 39 Sol so far, just clicking through photos, making a few comments and posting some photos I've used over here on my posts.
Those people though have no respect for copyrighted materials , they will post anything the can find if they think it will get them some endorsements, (upvotes). I believe it to be more like snap chat or twitter from what I can gather, I never used either of those, so I can't say from personal experience. They do have over 770,000 registered users so in number of accounts it is larger than here right now, not sure how many of them are active though. I'm going to hang with it , not much effort involved and who knows , Sol may be worth something in the future. If you try it please use my link, I get 5 Sol for referrals who use the link.
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I've heard from someone that 5 Sol payment for referral has ended. It wasn't true perhaps? Thanks!
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Actually @rightscomet you are correct , they just recently changed it to a 10% bounty on Sol that a referral user earns, so if someone user the link and earns $100 Sol, then I would end up getting $10 Sol. It says that this plan will be for the next 365 days, so that is quite a bit of potential right there.
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I can't wait until you tell us what happens. You are right when you say
We humans tend to be a lazy bunch and take too many things for granted.
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Well, I can tell you nothing is happening today with James case, the courts and all the county building are shut down from the winter storm we are having so we'll have to see when it gets rescheduled.
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Oh my goodness. The court system is exactly that... a racket.
It is nothing more than a money making scheme for the officials. We know first hand... because my husband, @beardo, was sentenced to pay LIFETIME alimony. It is endless and she doesn’t have to do anything to prove she needs it either. She either has to die or remarry for it to end... and for the last 15 years she has gotten 50% of his salary and 50% of any bonuses. No I’m not exaggerating. He took it to Supreme Court years ago and the judge wouldn’t hear the case because the verdict was “at the judges discretion” and he doesn’t overturn discretionary rulings. When there are no laws for or against alimony, the judge gets to decide.
So we worked with law makers locally and worked to get laws passed to fix that. We did get some passed but in the end they wouldn’t allow any language to be retroactive so it didn’t affect his case still. We are still trying.
She’s active, able, and could certainly work... and did work as a certified nurses aid up until the week of their divorce court. She is just vindictive and manipulative.
He is not an abusive, mean, controlling or angry man.. he is gentle kind and loving.
Our last court case landed him in a change of payment... instead of paying a percentage he can now pay a set amount per year and they also charged him of not paying the previous percentage correctly so they placed a judgement against him for $32,000 for claiming me and the kids on his taxes the last ten years. Apparently when you pay alimony, you can no longer get married and claim a family. So you’re stuck in the past, as an indentured servant... with no hope for a future.
@jeejee
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There are so many things messed up with our so called "judicial" system it isn't even funny. Sorry to hear about your situation. I am 90% sure your husband could find a way to win in his situation, but he can't do it if he has an attorney representing him, attorneys take an oath that says basically, uphold the integrity of the court and the profession all else be damned.
I did a blog on that very subject, I took the oath that lawyers in Texas are required to take in order to be admitted to the state bar and broke it down for lay persons to be able to understand. Here is the link in case you would like to read it https://steemit.com/blog/@sultnpapper/daily-dose-of-sultnpapper-11-10-17-not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity
It was the start of the whole "not guilty by reason of insanity" but as I have been known to do, I got side tracked and explained the whole court / lawyer / client relationship in that post.
Take care and thanks for stopping by and sharing your experience with us.
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Definitely going to check into it. Thank you! We have pounded our foreheads so much over this that we have callouses.
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Beating radar is easy. First, when aiming, the device has to be at the correct degree to accurately receive the echo. Secondly, if the radar device is not secured or mounted, then the shaky hand syndrome comes into question. Ask the officer for his pistol range score. Radar score is always lower than that. (Oops, you weren't certified for radar skill; eh?) Also, cross-examine what he/she was taught in radar classes. Challenge the officer as not being a qualified witness. Calibration can be challenged. I pointed out, years ago, that my Chevy Nova was calibrated by the General Motors Corporation. I went on that unless the officer could prove that General Motors did not know what they were doing with motor vehicles, his testimony did not trump my statement and that the preponderance of evidence weighed in my favor. Even simpler, I would find out when the officer was on vacation and request the hearing during that period.
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Thanks for all your tips and advice. James has been down all the roads before, those are good for stringing the case out and tying up the courts time and making them "earn" the money they collect in fines. He and I both believe he will stand a better chance should it go to trial by attacking the actual code that the district attorney is trying to apply in this case, it doesn't apply and is says it right in the code.
A jury will easily be able to determine that if they can read. Once they read it, they should understand that they have been duped like the rest of the public and have just "believed" the code applied because that has been passed along as being the case for so long.
We even have a copy of the District and County Attorneys Handbook on Traffic Stops, it is their "guide book" on how to prosecute traffic offenses. It states right in the book that "speeding" in and of itself is not a violation.
They know, we know it, and the judge knows it the only people who don't know it the public and we are hoping to change that as we move forward with this ticket.
Appreciate your input, but we are going a different direction on this one.
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