If you want to fight your ticket on your own all the way to the trial date, you will likely spend hours upon hours in court and will have to go to court on three separate court dates just for the trial. For those who have nothing but time on their hands this may not be so bad, but for the rest of us who consider our time to be valuable or even our time to be money, this is not a cost effective way to handle a traffic ticket. The first court appearance is called the arraignment. At the arraignment you won’t get to see the police officer. It is only whether you plead guilty, not guilty or opt for driving school if eligible. If after spending hours of your time for the arraignment and you still want to fight your ticket, you will plead NOT guilty and will receive a second court date called a pretrial. You will not get to see the police officer at the pretrial either. At the pretrial you will get a chance to change you mind and your plea to either guilty or no contest. If after spending hours at the pretrial (generally, all the attorneys go first while the rest of the cases are called when the attorneys are finished), you still want to fight your ticket you will maintain your NOT guilty plea and your case will be set for trial. You will receive another court notice in the mail which will be your trial date. The trial date is your opportunity to confront the officer if he/she shows up. At this stage you have the right to cross examine the officer and put on your case. You also have the right to change your plea even at this trial date, so long as you do so before the officer is sworn in.
It seems like a lot of trouble to fight a ticket with 3 court dates just to get to see the officer.
Fortunately, the attorneys at the Traffic Ticket Help Center do all of these appearances for your and bring thousands of cases of experience at an affordable fee which is usually much less than paying the ticket. |