As you can see, it's a good bit more carefully constructed than my informal request for discovery. I modeled it very closely after the sample court documents found in the National Motorists' Association's Legal Defense Kit, and documented it very carefully with every scrap of evidence I could gather to support each statement. I set out the history of what had happened thus far, and reiterated what I was asking for.
The courtroom doors were opened promptly at 1:30pm, but it took another several minutes for everyone to get organized. There were other cases besides mine scheduled for this time slot, and based on rules for the priority of handling cases, my low-urgency speeding ticket was last in line behind some sort of suspended license situation and a "rolling stop" ticket. This gave me a good opportunity to observe Commissioner Heath and the attorneys at work, and get the feel for the actual trial process. If you can spare the time to do this ahead of time, I'd recommend it.
I also noted that Officer Jackson, the one who issued my citation, was present.
Before anything started, however, I was approached by Mr. Robert Martinelli, a law-student intern with the District Attorney's office. He would be handling my case, he said, but he seemed to be under the impression that we were going to trial, and he started explaining the whole trial process to me.
I pointed out to him that it was a motion hearing, and gave him a copy of my formal motion, but he seemed to want to insist on a trial because the officer was present, and claimed never to have seen any motion from me before, formal or informal.
I begged off and figured I'd wait for the Commissioner to sort out the misunderstanding. But it got me sweating a bit, because although I had done quite a bit of work leading up to this date in preparation of my case, I didn't feel ready to take it to a full-fledged trial - they hadn't even acknowledged my discovery request yet! And I hadn't yet gotten a sense of the Commissioner's demeanor, so I had no idea whether Martinelli's position would carry any water with him.
As
you can see on my page of notes to the left (click for a closer look),
I was scribbling out points of argument against going to trial at the top
of the page while I was waiting my turn before the Commissioner - "calendar
shows clearly motion for discovery...holding defense responsible for inability
of court to deliver clearly addressed documents to proper parties...CPC
1054.7 - 30 days prior to trial...officer has 2 cases here today, continuing
mine is no great loss."
Can you sense the agitation in my writing? Things weren't going as smoothly as I'd planned. The process of waiting my turn for judgement before a black-robed figure sitting beneath the Great Seal of the State of California, with all the punitive and coercive power of the State arrayed behind him, was having its calculated effect on me.
While I was writing, the suspended-license case was dealt with by a bit of wheeling and dealing by the attorney, and the Commissioner seemed interested in crafting a fair and even-handed resolution to the matter. A good sign.
Next up was the "rolling stop" ticket. As it turned out, Officer Jackson was the one who'd issued that citation as well, to a blonde young Morman woman, Ms. Evans, who was represented by an attorney. By this time I had finished writing my no-trial arguments and was able to take notes on this case.
"Jackson writes notes on other citations and refers to them" - apparently, Officer Jackson had positioned himself near the intersection in question and had written at least two rolling-stop citations that day. He had noted the traffic and weather conditions on the back of one of the citations, and on this citation, he referred to those notes by saying "see citation xyz." The next notes described this in more detail.The Commissioner seemed a bit puzzled by this, and Officer Jackson went through an explanation of the process that wound up a little tortured after being churned through the grinder of affected legalese, but apparently although it's not standard procedure in the department, it's not unheard-of. Naturally, I wondered if he'd done something similar with me.
"Evans did not admit - crossed out" - the person to whom the previous citation was issued apparently admitted to rolling through the stop sign, but Ms. Evans did not. This explained part of the citation that was crossed out on the officer's notes. Struck me as sloppy paperwork, and I suspect it struck Commissioner Heath likewise, but it carried. Noted on the bottom of the page was the final ruling, "shorthand notes not sanctioned by the court, no problem w/ references to other ticket."
"Standing on side of the bike / don't recall hiding" - for some reason, Ms. Evans' attorney made an issue of whether the officer was standing next to his bike when Ms. Evans noticed him, or astride it, and Ms. Evans was of the position that the officer was hiding from view while monitoring this stop sign, something that Officer Jackson did not recall doing.
Subsequently, there was discussion of how long Officer Jackson thought it took for Ms. Evans' car to traverse the stop line, from the front wheel to the back wheel - he put his estimate at half a second. The defense attorney did some quick calculations based on the wheelbase length of her car, and bounced back and forth over this issue and the officer's estimate of 3-5mph passage through the intersection. The officer was asked if he could demonstrate the speed at which she passed through the stop sign by walking from one side of the court to the other, and Officer Jackson declined.
When Ms. Evans testified (her attorney's big mistake), she naturally was asked whether or not she stopped at the stop sign. Well, duh - even a C-average law student would ask that question. Asked under oath, she said that she glanced down at her speedometer and it read "zero," and she then proceeded. She felt she'd "stopped long enough." Was it a "dimpled stop," a "pregnant stop," or a "complete stop?" Too bad for her that the Florida elections were months away.
Another interesting point was that Ms. Evans' attorney vigorously contested the officers note on Ms. Evans' citation that she'd said "you guys are a bunch of assholes, you hide where no one can see you" - it became the "LDS" defense. Ms. Evans, evidently, is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and as such holds herself to very high ethical and moral standards, including never swearing. She couldn't possibly have said anything like that to the officer, the attorney argued. Perhaps an attempt to undercut the officer's credibility, but it didn't cut any ice with the Commissioner in the end.
Once both sides "submitted" their cases for decision, Commissioner Heath, in his ruling, brought up that the Vehicle Code Section 587 defines a "stop" as "any cessation of movement:"
587. "Stop or stopping" when prohibited shall mean any cessation ofHe then discussed the burden of proof of "beyond a reasonable doubt" as requiring "moral certainty" of the facts of the matter. He then cited Officer Jackson's 18 years of service on the San Jose Police Department, and discussed three aspects of traffic cases as "perception, recollection, and communication." I made particular note of these three items, as I figured they would be useful in constructing my defense. Another valuable benefit of observing court cases before going to trial with your own - you can argue directly within the decision-making framework employed by the judge.
movement of a vehicle, whether occupied or not, except when
necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic or in compliance with
the direction of a police officer or official traffic control device
or signal.
In short, he decided that the officer's testimony carried more weight than "I looked at my speedometer and it read zero," and convicted Ms. Evans of the rolling stop.
I suppose if I'd been Ms. Evans' attorney, I would have pointed out that Section 587 only deals with the definition of "stop or stopping" when prohibited - such as under a "NO STOPPING, STANDING, OR PARKING" sign downtown - but not when it is required by a stop sign. The section says that it shall mean this except when in compliance with an official traffic control device, which the stop sign is. Then the question becomes what does "stop or stopping" mean when it is in compliance with an official traffic control device?
But then, I'm not a lawyer, even though I enjoy weasely technicalities almost as much as Bill and Hillary Clinton do. I might also have camped out by the police department for a few hours and taken videotape of dozens upon dozens of police cars making rolling stops at stop signs, and made an equal protection argument under the California and US Constitutions. Did I miss my calling? Perhaps.
I gave Commissioner Heath a copy of my formal motion, and pointed out my correspondence with the court regarding my informal request for discovery in my case file, and presented the certified mail return receipt for it.
Mr. Martinelli told the Commissioner that he had never seen my request for discovery, and that reading my formal motion was the first his office knew of my request. I noted that the address I had sent the informal request to was the same address as on the back of the citation, the very building we were standing in, and expressed uncertainty as to how I was supposed to know that it should have been sent to 70 W. Hedding Street instead of here.
The Commissioner pointed out that acting as an attorney in this matter, it is my responsibility to find these things out, and that it's generally good policy to send court documents to as many people as possible. The court clerks just got confused. I thought of saying that the clerks should know that something addressed to the District Attorney should go to the District Attorney, and how confusing could that possibly be, but it was really water under the bridge by then and so I held my tongue. The Commissioner did see some humor in the situation - "We are the same organization, aren't we?"
It was all worth it, though - little did I know what an incredibly valuable tidbit I would pick up in this hearing, jotted down here on the front of my copy of the motion for discovery:
Local road - using three point definition - maybe - find out if map submitted
I didn't know it then, but this would become the key to my victory in this case. During the hearing, Commissioner Heath pointed out to Mr. Martinelli that the way he interpreted Vehicle Code Section 40802(b)(1), the definition of a local street or road with respect to speed traps, the "three point definition" - namely "width, length, lanes" in (A), (B), & (C) - can only be used if the functional usage and federal-aid system maps have not been submitted to the Federal Highway Administration. He didn't say much other than this, but I'm glad I noted it.
When
all was said and done, this motion hearing simply became the first point
at which my request for discovery was
submitted to the DA's office, and the final outcome was that a
second motion hearing was scheduled for September 12 to deal with any
straggling issues as the DA's office responded to my motion.
The form to the left shows the outcome of this hearing and the scheduling of the next one. August 28th was the original date, but the Commissioner gave me a bit more time and bumped the date back to September 12th.
After my hearing concluded, the Commissioner called a recess "for the purposes of the court." I discovered, as I was walking to the parking lot, that this is the code word for his cigar break - he and Mr. Martinelli were standing outside the back door of the courthouse near the dumpsters, chatting as he puffed his cigar.
I greeted them, and asked for a touch more clarification on what I had to do next. I was given the name of Jennifer Deng, the District Attorney, and the address of the DA's office at 70 W. Hedding. I was asked to send a follow-up copy of the motion to that address in addition to the copy I had handed to Mr. Martinelli in court, "just to be thorough." I confirmed that Mr. Martinelli already had a copy.
I bid them good day, and went back to work, relieved to have gotten through my first hearing.
One week later, I sent another copy of the motion to the DA's office. I wasn't in any hurry because I knew that I'd given a copy to Mr. Martinelli. But I assumed that government offices operate efficiently and within the bounds of the statutory deadlines. Oops, my mistake.
