HELP!!! COURT!!! FUCK!!!
Thread started by
Undercover Bob at 11.5.08 - 3:35 pm
Okay, so the Los Angeles (and possibly all of California's) court system is pretty foreign to me so I'm pretty baffled by the combination of misinformation and poor communication by clerks that has lead me to this point. That being said, after my arraignment this afternoon, I'm faced with the awe-inspiring fact of owing the court a huge sum of money as bail (thanks to a "failure to appear" which I had no idea I'd accrued). Considering that officers of the court led me blindly into this situation, it feels a lot more like payola than justice.
Worst part: it's all over a stopsign violation that never happened. I swerved into the road to avoid an obstacle (suddenly stopping cyclist in front of me) and one of the two cops who happened to be driving next to/behind me at the time flipped out. Then he insisted that I'd run a stop sign perpendicular to the road I (and two friends) was on. I had weapons drawn on me, I was cuffed, searched, and denied any opportunity to speak my case. I was hoping that I would have an opportunity to make myself heard through the courts but I've severely fucked up the process that I was supposed to follow (which wasn't properly explained to me until today in court).
Can anyone with some legal knowhow help me make sure that I don't make matters worse for myself and help me ensure that whoever I end up borrowing my bail money from gets it back (after the court declares my innocence)?
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just tell em you're guilty and do some jail time.i hear county is nice this time of year.
mandingo11.5.08 - 3:44 pm
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SERIOUS, IF YOU GET A COURT DATE, BE THERE, ELSE YOUR FUCKED, BETTER THEN TO BE FUCKED IN JAIL.
eddieboyinla11.5.08 - 3:48 pm
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help me ensure that whoever I end up borrowing my bail money from gets it back (after the court declares my innocence)?
CAN YOU REWORD THAT ---- ABOVE?
eddieboyinla11.5.08 - 3:57 pm
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do you have a court date? if so, at the very least, get an extension on it 10 business days before the date. I'm pretty sure the cops have no idea you didn't appear the first time. the chance you take now is them not showing up.....
do you pay for car insurance? if yes, you may want to think about traffic school
if no, you have nothing to lose (except bail money) by fighting it.
you can also do a written declaration and lie your ass off.
barleye11.5.08 - 4:02 pm
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I wanted to do a declaration to begin with and had all the paperwork ready to go with statements from myself and two witnesses but I've apparently eliminated that option now. SUCK.
Undercover Bob11.5.08 - 4:29 pm
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call this guy:
Frederick L Darvey. 818-660-2115
he's good, knows everyone in the courts, and is willing to help you if you have money issues. Just be honest with him.
Tell him Mr. Cardoza sends you.
best of luck!!
Jazzy Phat Nastee11.5.08 - 5:20 pm
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what you explained sounds like you missed a court date (failure to appear) on or before the date due. First off, show up. Usually if you plead guilty, they will throw out the failure to appear charge. If you tell the judge/commissioner you had a complete misunderstanding, or you had a legitimate (sick w/doctors note) they may allow you to have your case heard. At worse case scenario you missed your case and forfeited the bail money(meaning you ain't getting it back). This is all if you where charged with a traffic infraction.
Where you charged with a misdemeanor or a infraction?
If you don't mind answering, what where charged with exactly?
Did they physically take you to jail? If so why?
sexy11.6.08 - 9:26 am
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yeah, I missed a court date. Of course, that happened after I showed up for what I thought was my court date and was told that it wasn't a court date at all by the clerk and that it was simply a deadline for payment which I could have extended. I was told that if I missed the extension, the fee would go up but that I could still pay it and send in my declaration. Turns out that wasn't the case at all and by failing to pay by the extension date (because I couldn't get the money together and tried to call the court for a week from where I was out of the state to find out what to do about it but got no one on the phone) I automatically got a "failure to appear."
At the end of the day, I pleaded "not guilty" at yesterday's court date and got a 7-day deadline to pay my monstrous bail. At which time, I will be given a court date for my trial. I hope that my two friends who were with me at the time of the incident will come to court and testify for me when the time comes. Supposedly, if I win my case, I get all the bail money back. Hopefully I'll find a way to pay the bail in the meantime.
I was charged with an infraction (running a stop sign) and a misdemeanor (nearly empty open container which my friends and I had forgotten to throw away after sticking it in my bottle cage about 4 hours prior). They gave me the open container violation as some sort of retaliation for not having found the weed on me that one officer repeatedly insisted I must have.
When I asked "What is this for? Why am I being arrested?" the angry response was, "This is because you don't know how to ride a bike!"
When the officer began to read me the ticket for running a stop sign, I started to say, "Now wait a second, I didn't go through any..." and I was promptly slammed into the hood of the squad car and asked, "Do you want to go to jail?" After I said "NO" they continued to make me beg for the tickets as an alternative to jail and eventually released me with the two citations.
Mind you, this was not on a big fuck-off group ride. This was three cyclists riding on their way from a bar to a car on the other side of town (two of whom just escorting so that the third wouldn't have to ride alone).
Undercover Bob11.6.08 - 12:40 pm
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AND I THOUGHT ONLY MINORITY'S GOT TREATED THIS WAY.
eddieboyinla11.6.08 - 12:46 pm
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That's terrible I know how frustrating and anxiety inducing dealing with the government can be. I myself just missed a court day on tuesday because I'm in NY, I called and apparently there is no way for an extension, so that was cool to hear.
I LOVE THE GOVT!!!
franz11.6.08 - 1:24 pm
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oh my fucking god. this is disgusting. i am so sorry ryan. no one should have to go through this. ugh
tomato11.6.08 - 1:28 pm
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First off PLEASE make a written complaint about the officers action. It won't necessarily help you with your court case. Officers like that need to be brought to the attention of their superiors. Also it is building paper work against on a officer who shouldn't be on the force.
In court you have to make the judge believe you are not guilty as charged. You can figure out a way to create reasonable doubt. Was the beer actually beer, was it tested, or is this just the officers word that it was beer. They have to prove you where guilty of that charge. There are many ways to create doubt. If you didn't admit to the officer that you had beer in the container, you still have a fighting chance on the ticket. Create a resonable doubt that you had a beer in your bottle cage.
Hopefully your friends will show up and testify. Keep on top of them and keep reminding them to come to court with you. Get your stories straight before you go into the court room.
If it is a commissioner or referee instead of a judge you don't have to stipulate (agree to having a court commissioner or referrer hear your case). They will have to provide a judge to hear your case. It is a way of pushing the date back. The police officer might not be able or won't show up to the next date and then your case dismissed. They may not get you a judge right away, then give you another court date. They might not get you a judge at all, then the case will be dismissed. You may get a judge who is pissed that you added to clogging up the court be bias toward you and rule against you. Then you have to consider if your witness can continue coming with you to the courthouse.
If you haven't paid the bail yet, you can show up to the court tell them you have no money and let the sheriffs take you into custody. This isn't a for sure scenario, but most likely the sheriff will release you out the back door, or process you into jail and process you right out. This is if you are not afraid of spending a little time in custody. Some people are deathly afraid of jail. It is really no big deal, if you don't have work or school.
sexy11.6.08 - 1:36 pm
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If you do appear before a Judge, try to wear a collared shirt and long pants (not jeans). If you don't have either, take 30 bucks and a trip to Old Navy. It's the biggest favor you can do for yourself cause it matters. Trust me..
turdfurguson11.6.08 - 1:40 pm
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Shit Ryan, these officers sounded like they had some serious, anger issues that needed to be straightened out.
Which basically pisses me off because I was rejected from the CDCR hiring list due to the pshrink saying I would be too violent!!!!
What sort of ass-backwards shit is this?
As far as incidents like this one are concerned, they should just dissolve the entire psych-portion of the employment process and then fire the ones who fuck-up after they've been hired.
So, big lawsuits will come about, it's not like the current psych-process appears to be making shit any better than it currently is.
Didn't mean to derail the main topic, I'm just finding my failure at getting into CDCR a little, too hard to let go.
bentstrider11.6.08 - 1:42 pm
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You can still provide wittness by declaration as statement. I advocate this so that one cannot trip themselves up in the event of scant memory. It is better to say the story once and correctly than stumble up months later.
Any stumbling works against in magnitudes.
hitsthepoles_ow11.6.08 - 1:53 pm
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I have had about a dozen or more moving violations, so I know the system pretty well....
Basically, the courts want your money, and as long as you're not arrested with outstanding fees, you will most likely be able to get an extention in one form or another. To discourage you from getting an extention, they will waste your time over and over again.
More than half the time when the court makes a mistake, you end up paying for it. Whenever someone tells me anything over the phone or in person, I get a name and employee ID number. Then I find someone else and ask them the same question, which is ususally at least slightly different.
Keep a notebook with every conversation you have on the phone or in person. Here is what you want to write down:
Date
time
employee name
employee number
call center number or location (if over the phone), window number (if in person)
Keep notes which are explicit enough for a judge to read. If you can, have the employee write it down for you.
When it turns out that you were misinformed by a court employee, you can bring your little court notebook with all your anal-retentive notes to the judge and calmly read your notes to him. Focus less on your story and more on your notes. Judges hear stories all day long, but rarely see people bring evidence.
It's not rock solid, but its a hell of a lot better than nothing.
Call me if you need any more info or advice. I'm taking the afternoon off.
EN
tortuga_veloce11.6.08 - 1:54 pm
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I just realized. You have a misdemeanor charge against you, if you don't have legal representation, then the court will assign you a public defender. If you have them fight the misdemeanor charge they will stick you with a $925 bill. I don't know if you can call the Public defender office in the court you are assigned to, I don't know how the public defenders office will even respond to your call, but it might be worth a try.
You may be able to ask them for the advise before hand. Some public defenders are great others have no business doing the job. Those that don't belong there will treat you like your some scum bag criminal. The good ones will help you. Most likely they will try to convince you to pay the fine. Directory to Public Defender Offices (213) 974-2811
The rules about a commissioner or referee still apply. They might just assigned your case right to a judge to start with???
If you do choose jail, you do one day for every $25 fine. Remember the amount you are being charged with for bail is about 3x the actual fine/bail. Say if they want you to pay $400, the fine is actually $100, which is four days in jail, Last I heard everybody is doing %50 percent of there sentenced time, that means you would do two days.
Good luck, I hope this helped. Don't worry it will work out. At worse you will be out some money. I know that sucks, but you will still be able to live and make more money.
sexy11.6.08 - 1:56 pm
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^
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you gais are so wonderful. thank you for all your info. THANK YOU.
bondink11.6.08 - 2:16 pm
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@ sexy
If it's one day for every $25 fine, I think I'm looking at about 10 days due to my mislead "failure to appear"... which is pretty fucked up considering that I'd have to do the time BEFORE I even get a chance to have my case heard. Gotta love this system. I know they want money, but I just don't have any to give them.
As far as the open container is concerned, it was a separate citation from a different officer. Why they EACH had to give me a citation for something, I do not know. I suspect quota. As a result, I'm not sure that my hearing will regard anything but the supposed stop sign violation since that's all that I heard the judge mention at the arraignment.
Undercover Bob11.6.08 - 2:39 pm
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not necessarily. The judge usually will remove the "failure to appear" charge when you show up and then you will be stuck with the original bail/fine. If you pay it before hand, you might not get that money back. If you haven't paid it yet, show up to the courthouse and pled to the judge you got bad info and your here to contest the ticket. They might just make you pay the original bail amount to get a court date.
I don't think it was quota, it might be that one was more experienced then the other with those cases, and if hauled into court he would for instance, have the 'training' and the 'certificates of completion' of that certain training to know what beer is, which would make is testimony that what you had in that contain was beer, valid.
Having two separate cases will take more of your time, but it will make it easier to fight each charge. More chance of the courts not being able to satisfy everything to have a case against you. i.e. providing you with a judge, officers showing up, etc.
If you have the time, make the court work for your conviction.
After covering the judges race, I found that they all felt the biggest problems with the courts was the overburdening case loads that it has.
The more you burden it, the harder it will be for it to extract money from you.
sexy11.6.08 - 2:51 pm
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how do I get to talk to a judge about any of this? It seemed pretty clear at the arraignment that I wasn't going to have an opportunity to talk to a judge until my court date AFTER I post bail.
Undercover Bob11.6.08 - 2:57 pm
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that is tricky. They are complete ass holes about that.
I don't know the answer. Try the public defenders office and see if they have an answer.
sexy11.6.08 - 3:06 pm
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