Could "Traffic Court" be considered Unconstitutional (see details)?
Supposedly, a person is innocent until proven guilty and they have a right to a speedy trial (6th ammendment).
But traffic court works differently -
In traffic court, you are presumed guilty and must interrupt the legal process to try to prove otherwise.
Some states (like Florida) are completely inefficient at dealing with false judgements or unjust tickets and citations.
There is often no system in place for a citizen to be heard by a judge.
For instance, the person must know about the ticket (which is not always the case with automatic ticketing), they must know that they can "contest" the ticket, then furthermore, when the ticket is being "contested" they are simply told to wait in a long line at the courthouse and then they are given a judgement through a window without being questioned or any kind of a trial.
How is this constitutional? It operates more like paying a regular tax.
Answers:
I believe you have discovered the truth about traffic court, amongst other institutions in this country. In may ways TC operates contrary to the constitution. So does, for example, Social Security. But, tell that to the powers that be!
The moneys collected by the traffic courts are a tax, and are often compounded by local assessments and fees so that they double or even quadruple. Just today 8/2/07 a court in Virginia ruled that the states "hazardous drivers fees" were unconstitutional and threw them out.
How to get rid of traffic fines or traffic court? No way, there's too much money involved for the government to ever give these up...ever.
Yeah, use that as a defense
Go back and read your ticket.
Then slow down.
I, in my humble opinion, believe it's all about the money. For instance in Chicago where they have red light camera's when you run a red light it snaps several pictures of the license plates, car, and driver BUT the OWNER of the car is mailed the ticket and is responsible [court upheld] for the fine. These photo tickets are hard to win in court [all about the money]. If you can get your buddy to fork over the cash for the ticket he incurred while borrowing your car your lucky. Funny thing though the ticket / fine does not place any "points" against your license even if you were the one driving. All they want is that fine [It's all about the money] like so many other laws that they vigorously enforce [drugs to name one] but seem to ignore the ones that don't have a good cash return, in my humble opinion.
I believe that if you want a trial in traffic court, you can demand one. But it's usually cheaper and easier to just pay up, so the system is set up to do that.
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