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How I fight these tickets is purely a technical defense. I'm not arguing that you were or
were not speeding. Because the way the law is written as long as you're traveling above
the posted speed limit for example 75 per miles hour in a 55 mile per hour zone then
technically your guilty of speeding. Then it just becomes a matter of how many points
your going to get on your driving record, what the pre-payable fine amount is, and if
you live out of state how it is reported out of state.
And if you remember back to your government classes back in elementary or middle school.
There are 2 different types of law. There's statutory law, which is what your charged
21-801.1 of the Transportation Article for Maryland code - the speeding statute. That's
law that's created by the legislature signed by the governor. Then there's what's called
case law or judicial law and that's law that's created by the courts of appeal either here
in the state of Maryland or federally. An example of that would be like your Miranda
rights where you have the right to remain silent anything you say can be used against
you in a court of law. Well in Maryland we have 2 cases dealing specifically with speed.
And what they do is they outline what foundational evidenced needs to be introduced prior to
the speed coming in. Now this is evidence beyond identifying you as the driver, the
proper vehicle, and the events occurred in the county in which you're charged. For example
Howard County or Baltimore County.
In Maryland the 2 cases dealing specifically with speed they outline 5 things that the
officer has to testify to prior to speed coming in. That is that he was certified to operate
the equipment he was using, the equipment itself was certified, the equipment was tested
before and after the stop and found to be proper working order, and before and after
stop can mean before and after the officer's shift and periodically throughout the shift.
That proper procedures were followed and operating equipment; and that proper records are maintained.
Now as long as the officer or trooper goes through those 5 things much like I just did
then he's laid what's called the proper Prima Facie foundation. That's just legal speak
on the face of it. The great thing for me as a defense attorney is that's rebuttable
presumption. Meaning we can fight it. And how I do that is I issue what's called a subpoena
duces tecum, again more Latin speak for a subpoena for documents.
Now in Maryland we have very strict rules as to what we're allowed to ask for before
court and what we're allowed to have access to. There are a lot of internet websites that
give you the answer on how to fight a ticket and they guarantee this how you can beat your
ticket. Well on every one of those that I've seen they won't work in Maryland because they
have assumptions that aren't available to us here in Maryland like discovery.
So by issuing that subpoena I'm requiring that that officer bring all that documentation
to court and only an experienced attorney will know what to look for in those documents
and what documents they're supposed to have and if the doc...if the officer does not bring
those documents to court or if they're brought to court and they don't have the proper certification
and that sounds kinda circular there but the certifications need a certification. If they
don't have that proper certification then it's like they don't exist. They can't come
in. So there lots of different technical steps to the State's case and if we can show the
court that the officer didn't...that the officer didn't operate the equipment according to
his training, if they're missing some documents, or in some cases that I had recently that
the documents show a glaring error then we can keep the speed out. If they don't have
speed then we get a not guilty.