It all began back when my daughter was 16. Yep, a new driver.
She got caught running a stop sign. I have no doubt that she actually ran it, but I had been participating in a legal discussion group at the time concerning the topic of how traffic regulations are improperly applied to non commercial use of the roads, and the process we are supposed to be granted within the agency charged with implementing those laws. “Supposed” is the key word. It would be prohibitively expensive for the State to actually provide everything they are required by statute to provide in this case. They would lose money.
Anyway, the crux of the matter is as follows. The regulation of traffic is an administrative thing. Enforcement of the laws governing traffic is given to a State agency for that purpose. In the State of Georgia, it is called the Department of Transportation. It is a sub department of the Department of Public Safety. All States have an Administrative Procedures Act (APA) which lays out how these agencies MUST deal with the public, and the public is to deal with the agency.
At the root of the whole scheme is this thing called the State Plan. The State Plan is written as part of the process of getting Federal highway funds. You can get a copy of your State’s “State Plan” with a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request and a few $’s for copying. I got Georgia’s but never had to actually use it. The fact that I got it “might” have had an impact on how they dealt with me…but I don’t know.
This State Plan is the master document where the State .. um .. plans to implement their local version of the Interstate Commerce Code. Technically, Federal “law” is to be enforced by Federal “officers”, but in order to make this something the States could enforce, the whole scheme was to make the State “law” essentially the same. That way, no Federal officers needed to be posted on State borders and we at least wouldn’t look like East/West Germany when it came time to move from one jurisdiction to another. Federal highway funds (taken from the States to begin with, but that’s another story all together) are contingent on doing this.
That is really not too important at this point, but it is a bit of background on how we got to where we are today. At its root however are the supremacy of the Federal definitions of particular words, notwithstanding what you will be told by the DA or any State or local judge.
The entirety of your State’s traffic code is written to implement the State Plan, which is written to implement Federal Interstate Commerce law within the State. This is all done under an administrative agency tasked with the whole scheme, as it is administrative in nature.
Enter the APA. There is a Federal act which applies when dealing with a Federal Agency, and each State has their own version of the same. They are all essentially identical, with perhaps the exception of Louisiana, being as that State is founded on French Provincial law as opposed to English Common law like the rest of them. A distinction without a difference at this point, but there are likely some differences in Cajun country.
Read up on your State’s APA and you will find that when an administrative complaint is filed…and this is what a traffic ticket is…the one against whom it is filed has certain rights within the agency itself. All administrative complaints where a “right” to something is concerned are subject to these rules. Since the ticket threatens your freedom and demands your money, both of which are “rights”, it falls under that umbrella. These rules dictate that you are to have a hearing within the agency FIRST. This defines the court of original jurisdiction as within the Agency and before an Administrative Law Judge. Once this Administrative Hearing has concluded, if you are dissatisfied with the results, “you” may appeal the agency decision to a judicial court of the type specified in statute. This is the FIRST point in the cycle where a judicial court has jurisdiction. This appeal cannot come from the Agency, but come from the citizen adversely affected by the Agency finding. Further, the findings of this court are to be in writing…so that you have something which you may appeal.
In the absence of this written agency determination and appeal, the judicial (district) court is lacking in what is known as “subject matter jurisdiction”. There are three “legs” to jurisdiction…think milking stool. These legs are “personal”, “territorial” and “subject matter”. If any one of them is lacking, the court must dismiss…it is not properly seated to adjudicate the matter.
Side Note: Traffic is lacking on another leg of jurisdiction as well, as “personal” jurisdiction must be obtained by “summons”, and “summons” must be “issued by a judicial officer…as in Judge” and “served” by a “disinterested third party”. The policeman writing and giving you the ticket is neither. He is an Executive branch employee AND the State’s witness against you, so your ticket is NOT a Judicial summons. It is, however, an administrative summons. So why does an administrative summons summon you to a judicial court? Just another defect in due process.
Back to the story.
Arraignment. This is the first appearance where you enter a plea…guilty, no contest (which is also guilty) or not guilty. We refused to enter a plea (which means they enter a “not guilty” plea on your behalf) and had the judge quite angry with us. That is also kinda fun, but might backfire if you have a judge with attitude…they might have you sit in a cell for a while, which is against their own rules and actually can be used in a damages suit later if you don’t mind sitting in a cell for a few hours…it is “false imprisonment”, as the rules of court are quite clear on what the judge must do if you refuse to enter a plea, and jail is NOT it. Read your rules of court before you go in and have them handy to answer the judge with. It really isn’t “his court”…it belongs to you, but you have to know the rules of court and the rules of evidence.
I wrote up a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, citing the APA and the lack of said agency finding. We had court. My motion was “dismissed” because I was not a “proper party” to the case…never mind that my daughter was a minor and I was ultimately legally responsible for her. Interestingly enough, the cop wasn’t there, so they set another date for another hearing.
I redid my motion with my daughter’s name on it and had her file it. This would take care of the “proper party”, even though she was only 16.
At the next hearing, guess who wasn’t there again? That’s right, the cop. The District Attorney (the one who prosecutes traffic tickets) moved to dismiss on their own for “lack of prosecution” because the State’s witness wasn’t there. This allowed them to drop the case without addressing the issues raised in the motion to dismiss. The judge, who was quite curt with me when dismissing my motion the first time, was very polite with me as he asked if it was acceptable for them to dismiss. That was fun.
On the way out of the building, the cop was in the elevator with us. Evidently he was “there”, but they had him stay out of the room so that they could dismiss it.
That was the setup. Fast forward a couple of years. My daughter dropped out of school and ran off to another State with her boyfriend, so my obligation to stay in that house until she graduated ended. I was working in Florida, so I moved my wife and younger daughter there for a while and put the house on the market. While in Florida, we got Florida tags and licenses, and painted some black GT stripes on the ’05 Mustang that was her birthday present. I scheduled a time to sit for the Law School Entrance Exam (LSAT) for Stetson Law School, as it looked like I would be there for a while and thought “why not”. This was the third and final time I would come close to pursuit of a career in law.
Then a relative’s health took a turn for the worse. I relocated my wife and daughter to their area so she could help out as much as possible and put my legal education efforts on permanent hold. Things went sour with other family, and my wife decided the stress on the relative wasn’t worth the effort at her simply being there, so she took our daughter back to the house in Georgia, which hadn’t sold. So here she is with Florida plates and license, but in Georgia again.
A new neighbor has moved into the neighborhood. A young lady…also drives a ‘stang. Has opened an antique store down the road a bit, on GA 400. Then Governor Sonny Purdue has called this road the Alpharetta Autobahn publicly, so running a bit fast on it is customary. In fact, if you actually do the speed limit, you will be impeding traffic.
Anyway, my lovely wife has a bit of a lead foot. Her love of a V8 is one of the things which endeared her to me early in our relationship. So she’s tooling down GA 400, clipping along at just above 60 or so. Didn’t pay much attention as the speed limit dropped to 40 for a town. Comes to the crossover where she’s going to U-turn and go back up a hair to this antique store. This cop going north decides to do the same…not only that, but after he turns around at one cross over, he crosses over north of the antique store and goes the wrong way down the northbound side to get there more quickly. Wasn’t that safe?
So, the wife walks into the store, where our daughter and the store lady are, sits in an easy chair and says out loud “Cops after me”. They’re like “yeah, right”…until he walks in… “Who’s driving the Mustang?”. The lady says “I have the red one”…just having fun. “The Green one.”. Ok, you caught me. Hands him her license. He gets on his phone…presumably with dispatch. After a few minutes he asks her “Do you have a house around here?”. Now isn’t that an odd question to ask someone with out of State plates and license? Already there is a hint of something going on. “Sure, just up the road”. “No, I want the address”. She gives it to him. The same address when my daughter’s adventure was happening.
He’s on the phone for about 20 minutes…then it gets interesting. Normally when an “officer” doesn’t issue a ticket, he hands the license back with something line “Please be careful. Have a nice day.” This time, however, he literally threw her license at her and said “Speed limit’s 40” and stormed out to spend the rest of the day writing tickets in the area. He was told in no uncertain terms NOT to write her a ticket, and he had no idea why.
Now, Georgia has gone to an “electronic insurance verification” system, so carrying an insurance card with you is not longer an absolute necessity. Lo and behold, my dear wife’s clipping along again at well above the limit in that area and the same cop pulls her over again. He pulls her over for speeding, but cites her for “no proof of insurance”, since she couldn’t find the card and he said the “system’s down” for the electronic verification. I just faxed a copy of the insurance card showing coverage for the date in question to the appropriate office and that one went away, but it is telling that he pulled her over for speeding and did NOT cite her for speeding. I don’t know how fast she was going that day, but with her lead foot and a Mustang I’m sure it was quite fast.
Anyway, that is the story of how I fixed it so Georgia won’t give my family a speeding ticket.