I know the obvious of being polite and respectful. do I show up early like an airport? Do I just show the guard my ticket? Anything I should know or be aware of?
If it was just an expired license, did you get it renewed afterwards? Oftentimes, cops will issue a “fix it” ticket to encourage people to actually take care of their stuff. Basically, you’ll be able to show the judge that you got it remedied. The judge will likely look at your (otherwise spotless) record, and outright dismiss it, or knock it down to a small fine. The cop knows this will likely be dismissed if you get it taken care of, so they really just issue the ticket to force you to actually stop procrastinating and get it done. It basically puts a deadline on your renewal.
If you haven’t renewed yet, you should start that now. At least be able to show the judge that you’re working on it.
Dress as well as you can, be on time or a little early, don’t piss off the judge.
Be honest.
if you’re wanting to talk to somebody before hand… they should have a public defender you can speak to. Bring relevant paperwork.
Be prepared for the public defender to ask you two questions then shun you the rest of the day while they tend to their other 30 clients that day
Do I need a public defender? I didn’t intentionally do anything wrong I just didn’t know my license was expired? I’ve got a clean record it was just a mistake.
Dude it’s your first offense. Just go in there dressed nice, when asked, plead guilty with a request for leniency while being completely honest. They will most likely give you a slap on the wrist and make you pay for the court fees. That’s it.
Probably not. By the sounds of it, it’s “just” traffic court… You’ll be herded into a courtroom with a couple dozen others, and each of you will be called in turn to speak to the judge. Kinda like a pop quiz. You’ll be told your charge and be asked a few questions. If you’re polite and genuine you’ll likely get off easy, since people LOVE to fight back and dig their hole deeper.
Back in high school I was in a similar situation, and basically got it completely dismissed because I was young and it was my first ever infraction.
IANAL
Yeah,.even ignoring the joke comments that are funny, alot of people are saying I should fight. I doubt that would be a good idea. It was an honest mistake and I’ve got a clean record. I think being honest is my best bet.
Traffic court, while yes it’s a court of law, is a bit more relaxed. Judges have far more leeway and they have a long docket.
You’re not the only one being seen and the judge wants to go home on time.
Be honest, courteous. In the rare event that the police officer starts saying things that are completely egregious, plead the fifth and ask for a continuance. Tell the judge that these facts are new to you and you’ll need time to assert a defense.
The judge may ask what you thought the charges were. Say something along the lines of, “Without waiving my fifth amendment right to self incrimination, my understanding is that I’m being charged for driving with an expired license.”
But this should be rare. Judges don’t like surprises either.
Again, remember that this is traffic court. Everyone is busy. If you’re a dick, they won’t have patience for you.
depends on your state but generally fighting will cost you a lot oi time and you lose anyway - then the judge mad at the waste of time throws the max fine or even jail at you. Just plead guilty pay the $50 fine and move on - it probably will be that cheap.
if you didn’t go to jail, not that big of a deal. get it fixed, go to court and explain. mistakes happen, you didn’t run anyone over. you might get a fine, shit happens.
it’s public too, go to your local court during traffic court, you can sit in. usually early morning, listen to other cases and see how it works, then you’ll have a better idea.
get it fixed
I’ve heard of people having luck going in with their renewed license. I can’t attest to it personally, and of course your mileage may vary
this is what I’d do. especially if it was an honest mistake, fix it, show you’re not a problem, move on.
I went to court for a traffic ticket and the cop didn’t show up, so I didn’t get charged with anything. Poof, gone. Just be honest and courteous and you’ll be as fine as you can be given the situation.
I’d still take one if that’s an option. A lawyer isn’t just somebody to defend you. They’re the ones best suited to guide you through the legal process.
You want the court to know it was a mistake? Ok, here’s how we argue that in such a way that it’s not admitting fault for some other legal aspect you need to be mindful of. And here’s a point we can make to see if they’ll change it to this other violation that has less of a penalty or doesn’t result in large premium increases with your insurance.
That’s something to consider. I just don’t want to seem like I’m being difficult to the judge.
If you know a lawer ask, but odds are they wilh say you are better off without them for something this small.
Don’t know where you are from but at least in 🦅 country you have a right to counsel. Thats works out to usually being assigned counsel (public defender) as soon as possible in the interest of justice. For a standard ticket you will probably have this settled within two court dates, your fees and other associated charges may not be so nice.
You only have that right when it’s a charge with a certain amount of weight, like prison time or a felony.
Any “Serious crime” which the SCOTUS delineated long ago as anything where you may face more than 6 months incarceration which lines up with just about anything.
Oh you’d be surprised what they’ve stuck under it. For example there’s a whole cottage industry in sending people to prison for being unable to pay debt. Said debt was incurred on a misdemeanor with no prison time so there was no lawyer and the debtor’s prison isn’t a trial so there’s still no lawyer.
When I used to work in a prosecutor’s office, in a situation like this where the person has a clean record and comes in for an expired license, as long as you renewed the license before your court date, we would just dismiss the charges. As long as your respectful of court and the process. Dress well. If court opens at 9:00 a.m., get there at 8:30 a.m.
You will see defense attorneys milling about. You could ask one of them where to go to talk to a prosecutor. Usually prosecutors would start calling cases at the 8:30 a.m. to make deals and see what defenses people are going to raise before the judge began calling the docket.
Just talk about how squeaky clean your record is and how you didn’t know your license was expired, how you went and got it renewed as soon as you found out, and you’d appreciate it if they’d dropped on your promise never to meet again.
I assume this is not for a trial appearance. This is a preliminary proceeding. Procedure may be completely different in your state.
I am not your lawyer.
I’ve not known traffic court to use attorneys but your jurisdiction may vary
You might not even get a public defender. Is an expired license at the same level as a speeding ticket in your area? If so, your government might only assign public defenders to ‘criminal’ charges with potential jail times. Just be aware of that before you start desperately trying to find one that doesn’t ‘exist.’
In most traffic courts, you don’t really need a lawyer unless it’s a serious and/or criminal offense.
If it was just a traffic ticket you can hire a traffic lawyer for fairly cheap if you don’t want to go to court or would like the comfort of someone there for you who does this often. In CA, I’ve seen this typically cost around $50 for handling a traffic ticket. They can get most tickets dismissed or at the very least the fine reduced. If a cop no shows it gets dismissed.
Best to get it renewed asap though as previous commenters suggested, then it becomes a non-issue, so a trip to the DMV might be a good idea. I’d head your DMV website since the address varies depending on the state you’re in. Renewing a REAL ID may require you take a short refresher course and provide two documents that prove residency, one that proves identity (US Passport, previous license, SSA card, etc) they’ll tell you what you need on there though.
Why could an expired license possibly require court? It’s an administrative issue at best, should require a 50 dollar fine for the mistake and we all move on
The US legal system is a giant abusive mess
Agreed. Unfortunately this is what happens when you attach dollar amounts to key performance indicators for effectiveness with policing. Fines = revenue for government so they try where they can. It’s why carpool lanes are so heavily policed here. The base fine rate is higher.
Oh you are in for a treat. I spent time in the local jail when I was much younger, and was surprised that some of my fellow inmates were in there for some absurd things. The two that stick out are:
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Driving without a license - apparently if you do this more than once, good chance they will just take you jail and impound your car, and if you can’t afford bail you wait until court, which is weeks or months.
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Unpaid child support - I actually have no idea the logic here. You have unpaid child support, so we will put you in jail, charge you 30$ per day to be paid upon release for “housing”, and guarantee you have no way to earn money.
The bail and housing fees are not actually specific to those crimes, it applies to all crimes but really compounds things in some situations.
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Dress well
Yeah, that’s one thing I’m worried about. Powers out because of the hurricane. I’ve got black jeans and a polo shirt clean.
That should be fine. It’s traffic court, not a murder trial, just don’t show up in a ratty shirt if you can be in nicer.
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If you don’t know what to do currently, just plead not guilty. For a traffic ticket they’ll schedule a bench trial. This gives you some more time to work things out. Talking to a public defender can help but also talking to the prosecutor can help too. They want things to be quick and easy. If they think you might try to actually fight it, they’ll try to appease you with less of a punishment or even none at all. One time I had a speeding ticket dismissed and no points on my license if I plead guilty to careless driving and paid the fine.
How does that work In this situation tho? My license is expired and I was driving. How could I say not guilty? Wouldn’t that just piss the judge off?
If that pisses the judge off, they are a bad judge. If they are a bad judge, getting out of their court as quickly as possible is your best bet. If they aren’t a bad judge however, then that shouldn’t piss them off at all. You say you didn’t know it was expired. How long ago did it expire? Why were you pulled over initially?
Right now you’re innocent, assuming you’re in the US or other former English colony. The judge is presuming you’re Innocent. It’s the cops contention that you were driving with an expired license and they may(do) have evidence to that claim, but until you admit to that in court, youre innocent. It’s not illegal to assert your right to be presumed innocent, and it’s not illegal to argue a poor case at a later date.
I wouldn’t listen to this advice, personally. Driving with an expired license is more black and white than speeding. With speeding could have been other cars around that the radar was picking up, the radar might not have been calibrated recently, the cop might decide it’s not worth showing up.
I’ve pleaded not guilty to several speeding tickets and got some dismissed and some reduced (I lived in a rural area as a college student and they made a lot of money that way)
One time my sister got a ticket and asked me the process to expect when you plead not guilty so I told her - but I didn’t know she got the ticket in a school zone. When she got there the cop got up on the stand and ran through his certification to operate the radar and when it was last inspected and they asked her how she could explain that she could possibly be not guilty and she got whatever the big fee was. (Which I assume she would have had to pay anyways but without the embarrassment)
It’s not in dispute that your license is expired, and I would think hard to dispute that you got pulled over while driving. Given those two facts I don’t see an advantage to pleading not guilty, you might just annoy the judge, which decreases likelihood of lenience.
you might just annoy the judge,
I covered that with the part about a bad judge. Additionally, nothing stops them from changing their plea to guilty after the fact. Their court date is tomorrow. This will give them time. After that, even if OP was guilty and caught dead to rights, they could get the case dismissed if there wasn’t a valid reason to pull them over. Sure that might be unlikely, but possible. Lastly, the cop might not even show up.
There’s lots of resources online specifically about your state, that will be important, as every state is different.
In one state where I lived, you had the right to transfer moving violations to criminal court (the court for tickets was generally a Justice of the Peace, which is an appointee, so a legal education isn’t required to be one).
Criminal court has higher requirements for everyone involved, so it can be useful for defense purposes. It also costs more, both for the state and for you in court fees (fines will be the same). The advantage is the state is motivated to plea your charge down to clear the docket. I’ve seen this many times, for everything under the sun. But, every state is different.
I assume since you have court it’s because this is your first ticket, and you’re young - not sure why they do that, but it’s not uncommon. I guess they want to put the fear of the legal system in you. Had the opposite effect for me, saw it was just a process, that goes on all day, every day. Later tickets you just pay.
Actually I’m not young. Im 35 but I drive like an old man so never even get tickets much less had to go to court for anything.
I’m assuming my chance of going to jail over this is low but I’m still worried about it. Ive never been to jail and that would cause me to miss work and I need my job.
I don’t know if criminal court would be a better option because I can’t think of something lesser than letting my license expire accidentally.
You could possibly ask for your case to be continued, and have time to renew your license.
You aren’t going to go to jail. This is an administrative ticket, you didn’t even do anything wrong like speed or run a stop sign.
Agreed - they want your money here, not your liberty.
Like others said. you’re not going to jail. You’ll be ok. You’ll get a fine and maybe points on your license.
If you haven’t already renewed your license, do not drive yourself to court. I know that probably sounds obvious, but people still manage to get in trouble doing that. I’d actually recommend taking an Uber or something if your license is still expired; you can get a ride from a friend, but an Uber will at least give you a receipt that you can present to the court in case it gets brought up (and they will ask “How did you get here today?” if you’re still expired).
I thought of that. I saw the viral video with that dude driving during his video court.
I was going to walk. It’s a small town and I walk a lot as a hobby anyway.
Since I realized my license was expired I’ve been walking to work and to the store. Again it’s a very small town and I can walk just about everywhere.
However if they are going to ask I might want some proof…no can’t afford an Uber right now but maybe I could take some pictures of my walk? Or take the bus just to have a bus ticket?
Proving that you did something wrong is on them. If you walk, they’ll see that you arrived on foot and that’s good enough. (They’ll have all the lot entrances with plate reading cameras, so they can tell if you’re driving.)
It’s sufficient to just walk, they won’t be able to prove that you drove in since, well, you didn’t.
But, eh, bored cops might like to double check. You might be able to finagle a lift home if they do.
However if they are going to ask I might want some proof…no can’t afford an Uber right now but maybe I could take some pictures of my walk? Or take the bus just to have a bus ticket?
Film your entire walk to court
The burden of proof is on them. IANAL, but I would advise against trying to prove anything. If you want to argue against something then the burden of proof is on them and they don’t have it, so just shut up and sit quietly and respectfully.
Where I live, phones and cameras aren’t allowed in magistrate court.
They won’t ask you to prove that you didn’t drive to court.
They will ask how you got there. Don’t lie if they catch you in a lie that is bad. Walking is fine tell them they can send an officer to verify your car is at home. Move it to the driveway if in a garrage - don’t move it off you property though. They probably won’t check but make it easy if they do check.
You can offer that your car is not parked in the parking lot. No one will check but if there are cameras they have the option of checking later.
He lives in a small town. Odds are much higher they check.
Ever underestimate a hired cop. At least it’s not a warrant Wednesday.
Did you fix the problem? If so, just show that you fixed it and they will probably drop it.
If you haven’t fixed the problem, be prepared to explain yourself.
In any case, be prepared to deal with the fine immediately. Even if you have to use credit. Judges never want to hear that you cannot pay a fine same day.
There’s no way I can deal with the fime immediately. That’s kind of information is exactly what I was asking about…
I live paycheck to paycheck. I don’t get paid again until next week.
They really expect people to pay the unknown fine immediately?
You can ask for reduced fines and a payment plan. Take proof of income if you have it.
Yes, but if you are really that bad off state ‘i missed the notice because I am housing insicure. I have little money after rent so I ask the court to show mercy’. A lawyer can word that better but something like that. If this is a first offense they may let you off with a warning.
I wouldn’t say you’re housing insecure unless that’s true.
He implied it was true. For sure don’t lie or even give an appearance of a lie.
I don’t think that’s what they expect, but my impression is from a traffic court YouTube video. You can probably tell the judge that you will pay it by the end of the week at least.
Yes they do. It’s not a show stopper if you can’t pay, just be honest. “No sir/ma’am, I cannot pay that today as I live paycheck to paycheck. May I set up a payment plan with the clerk?”
Judges see it all the time and really since you don’t have any actual charges there’s nothing they can or will do to you.
I went once for something similar - maybe registration - i can’t remember. I got there early and asked the clerk what to do. Before court started someone came out and made a deal for me to pay half the ticket, plus court fee (like $30) and get it resolved. Went with my DIL who had her license suspended many many times. Clerk helped us get the hardship paperwork and the judge was firm about following the rules but nice about explaining them.
Country?
Put on “nice dinner with grandma” clothes. Try not to show up inebriated.
Yes, show up early. You might have to go through security/metal detectors. Others will be motivated to also get you in and out as quickly as possible so just ask around if you’re lost. If it’s just traffic related then it’ll be relatively painless - minus some time from your day. Good luck.
It might be too late, but if you have your license renewed tell that to the judge. They will ask you how do you plead, I wouldn’t try to pull any shit with the not guilty plea. Just say you plead guilty, it was a mistake, and you renewed it immediately.
I had my state inspection expire and it was dismissed by the judge. Just dress nice, be respectful, and tell them it happened and you fixed it ASAP. You will still have to pay a court fee, so you won’t get out of jail free, but not having points on your license is worth it.
At the end of the day, most judges just want to see that there wasn’t a nefarious reason you didn’t have a valid drivers license. If you were able to renew it, no harm no foul.
I haven’t renewed my license yet. In my state I have to take the written test again so two appointments at the DMV
Im also in retail management so between COVID call outs, holiday roll outs, and a hurricane… I haven’t had a day off in months.
I personally would schedule something even if i know i cant make it so i can tell whoever i talk to that i have it all scheduled.
it won’t look great if you’re taking no action toward correcting the issue.
That’s a bummer. I would have a plan for how to get to the courthouse without personally driving, otherwise the judge might take offense with how you arrived there illegally and do something more drastic.
Don’t wear a shirt, cover yourself with some form of grease, you MUST bring a goose (anger level is up to you) and last but certainly not least, you have to walk in the court room singing the opening lines of Get Low by lil Jon.
“Cop Killer” by Ice-T and Body Count is also acceptable entrance music.
Anger level, sir, is up to the goose.
Found the goose, and they’re not silly.
The anger level can be modified by human interaction.
But only in the increasing direction.
Get a Canadian goose. Those things are crazy at times.
Glad I asked I had no idea. Do I need to make the hand motions when I get to “skeet skeet godamn”
YES
Do you have a valid reason for not receiving mail re: renewal of license? Move recently? It’s not an excuse but it is an explanation for why it happened.
I’m housing insecure. I’ve always worked hard but it’s never been “my place” it’s always a roommate or girlfriend and I move around A LOT. Plus one of the symptoms of my ADHD is “time blindness” it’s hard for me to judge how much time has passed between two events. That’s why I didn’t think about my license might be expired. 1 year, 7 years, 12 years… It all feels the same to me.
“I’m sorry your honor. I have a medical condition and it can be hard for me to keep track of dates. I don’t have a doctors note for that but I could get one if I need to. I’ve also moved residences so I didn’t get the notification to renew. I’m going to get my renewal as soon as I can.”
Ok, here’s what you do. Basic step 1, and I can’t believe I even have to say this…but you GOTTA show up 45 minutes late, and completely wasted. Wearing clothes that have been worn daily for years, but never once washed.
Then, you INSIST there’s no drugs in your system, and you’ll give them a free urine sample right now! That’s when you whip out your cock, and power wash the judges face with your urine from 10 feet away.
Next…you need to INSIST you know the legal proceedings of a court better than the judge, the baliff, the cops in the courthouse, any public defenders or lawyers in attendance. YOU get to tell THEM what to do. Rememer, you’re entitled to everything you demand. They’ll respect you so much more for knowing how these things work. You’d be surprised how many disrespectful assholes show up in a suit, with combed hair, and brushed teeth, totally sober! It’s a disgrace that they would accept responsibility by saying they made a mistake, and plead no contest. How do they expect to have anal sex with the judge, and super models, and do cocaine, when there’s no reason for them to fear you. That’s how the world works!
With this new solid advice, I had an idea and wanted to check with you.
When they call my name should I ignore it, as to not seem too desperate.
When they call my name again should I say “daaaaamn I heard you the first time! My license is expired not my hearing. Chill you’re shit nigga” (to clarify I’m unambiguously white)
Dress well to show respect for the court.
That’s so fucked up and classiest
Dressing well doesn’t necessarily mean expensive clothes. It means wear something that demonstrates that you take the court seriously. I think you’re telling on yourself here.
Check your privilege. Some people can’t afford more than the torn clothes on their back.Uneless you’re suggesting they should skip more meals of food just to impress some pompas judge?
I didn’t specify the quality of clothing. I specified the intent. If you only have torn clothing, you would wear the least torn.
Youre very out of touch with/poverty. Why do you expect people to have a wardrobe of multiple items of clothes?
Because the majority of people in the USA (where I took this thread to originate based on context) have multiple sets of clothes. Someone who can afford internet and a device to get on Lemmy likely has multiple sets of clothes, even if they are all low-cost or run-down. You’re not convincing me of anything other than you being stubborn.
I didn’t say I’m poor. I’m aware of my privileges. I’m trying to make you aware of yours too
