11 tickets...

[goudeyman95]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? New York

Due to a series of bad decisions on my part, I was given 11 tickets from Monroe County Sheriff's for vehicle and traffic violations which all took place on my (private) college's campus. These violations were noted by my college's campus safety officers, and were relayed to the sheriff when he arrived. I spoke with the sheriff after he gave me the tickets, and he told me because he was not there when the infractions took place, he was not going to give me a supporting deposition and highly recommended to me that I plead not guilty and request a written deposition for all the tickets (which he told me he would not fill out when it was requested). The next day I mailed in all 11 tickets pleading not guilty and requested a written deposition. My scheduled court date is a month from now. Assuming the officer stays true to his word and does not submit written depositions for the tickets I was given within the 30 days from when I submitted the not guilty plea, what is the best course of action for me?

From reading different forums here, precedent is that I should file a motion to have the charges dismissed, so I am asking how do I go about doing that? Also, what is the chances that these tickets would be dropped?

Thank you in advance

 

[HighwayMan]

First of all you must have annoyed someone like crazy to get eleven traffic tickets.

Secondly, the sheriff didn't write you a deputy sheriff did.

If you requested a supporting deposition for each ticket the deputy is supposed to write them and serve them on you - usually by mail. So you will know if he did them or not. The court only gets a copy - you get the original.

Assuming the deputy does not do them (you need to receive them within THIRTY days of your request) then you can request a dismissal of each charge. Most courts are relatively informal and would allow an oral application to the judge the day of the proceeding. However, that's in downstate NY. You can check how it works in Monroe County by calling the court and asking the clerk.

The Criminal Procedure Law DOES state that motions of this type must be made in writing before the court date, so...

To be on the safe side, once the thirty days passes and you have not received the depositions, you can write a letter to the court (does not have to be of any specific format usually but you can check with the clerk) listing each ticket number, stating that you requested a supporting deposition for each, did not receive them, and request that the charges be dismissed. You will probably still have to show up in court but your request should be in your file and the judge should dismiss the charges.

 

[HighwayMan]

Also, what is the chances that these tickets would be dropped?

For some reason I could not edit my previous post to add:

It is REQUIRED that the charges be dismissed if no supporting deposition is served within thirty days of the request date and at least five days prior to trial.

If you did, in fact, request them and they were not served then the judge has no choice but to dismiss the charges.

 

[goudeyman95]

Thank you so much for the information, I really appreciate it!

Have a good night

 

[HighwayMan]

You're welcome. If you have additional questions post them here.

 

[Insane Jane]

His hand must have been sore after writing 11 of them....

 

[HighwayMan]

His hand must have been sore after writing 11 of them....

In New York (and in some other states), we use something called TraCS (Traffic and Criminal Software). Not all departments avail themselves of this but most sheriffs departments seem to.

TraCS allows the officer to scan the barcodes on the license and registration and then generate a traffic ticket and print it in the car. Additional tickets are replicated from the first one and take about ten seconds and almost no typing to complete. They are then simply printed on a thermal printer and handed to the motorist.

My agency started getting TraCS hardware almost 4 years ago and I have not hand-written a ticket since.