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The advice offered here is that of attorney Norman G. Fernandez
 
 
 
 

For more on the
importance of 
appearance and
demeanor in court, click here.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

NOTE!  While the advice regarding a "preemptive objection" is excellent as a trial tactic, courts do not recognize this as a legitimate objection.  It is sort of "dirty pool," and if a judge believes you are objecting just to upset the "rhythm" of the officer's testimony, you are going to have one very angry judge... and it is not wise to anger a judge.  If you ever were to make a "preemptive objection" by blurting out those two words, you guarantee pissing off your judge.

      The first time you hear the Bailiff announce, "The people versus you", it kind of sends a little chill down your spine. You're entering a strange arena that you really don't have any knowledge about, and you're wondering to yourself why you didn't just pay the fine and be finished with the whole ordeal. Relax, take a deep breath and be confident in the fact that you have spent more time preparing for this case than the prosecution has. His only advantage is that he knows how the procedure works. We'll try and balance that out for your in this chapter.

      If you have had a chance to visit a courtroom before your trial, observe how people are dressed, so that you may dress accordingly. A normal attire will be a suit for men, and a conservative business suit for woman. Don't wear anything loud, flashy, or attention getting. The Judges first impressions of you are extremely important and you want it to be lasting and favorable. Don't let him form a negative opinion of you before you even get started simply because of the way you are dressed. 

      People that you will contend with in your trial are listed below: 

• Defendant - that's you 
• The Prosecutor/ADA - he's the guy in charge of the opposing team.
• The Judge - Basically he's the referee, he's the one who is the final authority on anything from the final objections, the verdicts, or the fines. 
• The Police Officer - He's the star witness for the prosecution.
• The Bailiff - Think of him as the Master of ceremonies, and he's also Sergeant of Arms for the court.
• The Court Clerk - that is the Administrative Assistant to the Judge.

      Just remember that the Judge being the final ruling authority can postpone you case until the end of the day to see if the officer shows up for the trial. Be prepared to wait that amount of time.

      Below you'll see a listing of typical events in the order that they will happen during your trial:

• The Bailiff calls the case.
• The defense, that's you, and the Prosecution both reply with "Ready your Honor." 
• The Prosecution will give their opening statement.
• The Defense will give their opening statement.
• The Prosecution will present their case, they will have the police officers testimony.
• There will be cross examination by the Defense.
• There will be a re-direct by the Prosecution.
• Any physical evidence that happens to be available will be brought to light at this time.
• Any diagrams, citations, that sort of thing, then the Prosecution will rest.
• If you have the grounds, you will make your motion to dismiss, on non-applicable grounds at this point in time.
• The defense case will include your witness, either you or your passengers.
• Cross Examination by the prosecution.
• Re-Direct by the defense, and you as the defense, will rest.

      The Prosecution's job is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt through the use of testimony and evidence that all the vehicle code sections that you're accused of violating, had in fact been violated. Typically, the Prosecutor will attempt to prove that the ticketing officer made a visual estimate of your speed and then verified that speed with his laser detector or, by following you with his vehicle. Make a note of the fact that the Prosecution has a case law which supports their side of the story and that would be the State of Kentucky versus Honeycutt which ruled that an officer does not need to be an expert in radar operation, he only has to be competent in the use of radar. The purpose of your objections during the trial procedure and the prosecutions presentation do have two purposes. First of all, you want to break up the pace that the Prosecutor and the arresting officer or the ticketing officer are accustomed to. Primarily you can do that through objections. Anything that appears to be subject should be objected to. Take a look at what follows, for some of the typical objections that you have available to you. Even if you are overruled, the police and the Prosecution have to break up their rhythm in order to wait for the Judge to make a ruling.

      While the Prosecution is presenting their case you should be making notes as to what was said. Make comments concerning your upcoming cross examination so that you are prepared before you get up to talk. Keep a tally, a running record of the various points of the vehicle code in question. As the Prosecution proves that point of your case, check it off. This will be able to give you a record as to whether or not he has covered all of the points in the case law. If all of the code issues are not checked off and you know that they have not been covered by the Prosecuting attorney, you have reason to make a motion for dismissal. Keep in mind that the Prosecutor must prove all the points in the code beyond a reasonable doubt. 

      Now lets take a look at some of the typical objections that are used in a traffic ticket trial.

      The entire purpose of the objections is to keep the evidence limited to specific testimony which is specifically relevant and admissible to the case. The only one who has authority over this is the Judge. He can say nothing about evidence that is produced in the case unless it is objected to. There is a fine line between how many times you can object and not be reprimanded by the Judge and also how few times you can successfully defend your case without being run over by the Prosecuting attorney. 

      Here are some of the objections that you may come across in a typical trial. 

   OBJECTION, INDEPENDENT RECOLLECTION When the officer begins his testimony, more than likely he's going to read from the copy of his citation. You should immediately object to this since the officer is required to testify from independent recollection. You should also ask to see what the officer is referring to even though you have received a copy of the citation through subpoena. More than likely the Judge will allow the officer to use his notes to refresh his memory, if the officer indicates to the court that he requires the notes to testify properly. This starts everything for dismissal because the sixth amendment to the Constitution guarantees you the right to be confronted with the witnesses against you. In this case, the officer and his testimony, not the citation, are the witnesses against you. If the officer can not recollect the circumstances of your ticket, he may be consider incompetent to testify. You have to prove that the officer is unable to testify without his notes to make him an incompetent witness. If the back of the citation and the officer's notes signifies SB 124, then all he can testify to is SB 124, not Southbound on highway 124. As you'll soon see the notes on the back on the officers citation can hurt the officers' testimony and help you greatly.

    OBJECTION, FOUNDATION A situation arises when any witness testifies to something that has not been previously established as evidence. For example, the officer states that the speedometer on his police vehicle read 70 miles per hour. It is inadmissible in court unless the calibration for the speedometer had been entered prior to that point in time.

    OBJECTION, SPECULATION This type of objection occurs when a question is asked of a witness and they introduce evidence that they could not possibly know. For example, they introduce the fact that you could clearly see a street sign or a speed limit sign and there's no way that they could know that. Only you could be aware of that fact.

    OBJECTION, CONCLUSION In this case the Prosecution would ask the officer to draw a conclusion based on an insufficient amount of facts. For example, the officer volunteered that you saw a stop sign and chose to ignore it. He cannot make that decision because he does not have the facts.

      OBJECTION, NARRATIVE The officer is allowed to testify in the form of a story rather than a question and answer procedure. He has given a narrative. You have a right to decide if a particular question would have an objectionable response. If he tells the events without questioning, you have no opportunity to object. 

    OBJECTION, NOT QUALIFIED It's similar to the previous objection, but in this instance the witness testifies to something that they have no expertise in. If the officer were to testify that your muffler was defective, he doesn't have the expertise to make that determination since he's not a muffler mechanic.

    OBJECTION, HEARSAY In essence this is anything said outside of the courtroom by someone who's not a witness. The officer may not state what a witness told him at the scene. The actual witness would have to appear in order for that testimony to be entered into the court record. If one officer wrote a speeding ticket for a radar violation for another officer, both officers must testify, only to the extent of how much they were 
involved in that particular incident. 

    OBJECTION, IRRELEVANT These are events that may or may not have happened and have no bearing on the particular law that you are accused of violating. The officer may state that you have had a hostile attitude towards him, which has no bearing on the ticket. Your attitude is not relevant in the speedy fulfillment of the law.

    OBJECTION, IMMATERIAL It's very similar to the previous objection. It may be closely related to the previous facts at hand, but it's really not close enough to remain admissible. Perhaps the officer would bring up your driving record. Your prior traffic convictions have no influence and should have no relevance to the ticket that you were fighting at the present. You cannot be judged on your past performances. If that were the case and you've had 12 speeding violations in the past three years, they would be assuming that you would be guilty of this violation.

     THE PREEMPTIVE OBJECTION This is when you realize before the fact that the officer is going to drop some bit of information that could be damaging to your case. In this case, you would object prior to the officer even mentioning it, just to disrupt their rhythm enough so that it would throw them off. Be advised that you are only permitted to be able to use this once or twice during the course of the trial because you are going to aggravate the Judge. If you abuse this type of objection, when you have a real objection the Judge will just overrule automatically without hearing your case.

     During the cross examination period you're acting as your own defense lawyer and your main purpose is to discredit any witnesses testimony. In order to create a reasonable doubt in the eyes of the court, remember your opponent, the Prosecution has to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that you are guilty of the infraction that you are accused of. The key to succeeding in this type of examination is to find the details that the police officer can't possibly remember and focus in on them. You should always be prepared for this type of questioning and the best means of being prepared for that would be by knowing the answers to the questions that you are going to ask. You should be prepared for any answer that the officer gives. His best answer will be the facts that he already knows. Lets say you ask the officer the color of your car. On the back of your citation he may have it indicated that your car is blue. What you want to know is what shade of blue. If he tells you the proper shade of blue on your car, move on to another subject. If he tells you he doesn't know, he can't remember the facts of his case, and if he tells you it's white, he hasn't a clue and can't remember what he wrote on the citation. That happens to be great for you. Don't ever argue the case with the officer. Just ask questions. You'll have your chance in your case later in your motion to dismiss. The next criteria for cross examining questions is whether or not the questions will help your case.
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