Subject: Speedy trial for traffic ticket? (Mass)

From: [email-masked] (David Chesler)
Date: 2 May 1995 19:14:01 -0400

I have just received notice of a hearing for a traffic citation I
was issued 2.5 years ago.  (There were a number of complications,
including the RMV sending the notice of a hearing back then to
Hudson, Mass, rather than Hudson, NH, and I never got it; also
the original ticket said "unsafe lane change" [I'd made a lot of
safe lane changes, I guess that adds up to one unsafe lane change :-) ]
plus speeding, but since then it's only been speeding.)
  I'd like to beat this because default means 6 years of insurance
surcharges (or lack of safe-driver discount, same difference), even
without a conviction ("found responsible") finding.

  Question:  Is there a right to a speedy trial in a traffic
violation?  Is 2.5 years not speedy in Massachusetts?  If so,
how do I invoke the right (other than hoping the officer is
truthful when I ask him "Do you really remember the events
of October, 1992, or are you just reading notes?")
  Statutes of limitations don't apply, do they?

  When the Registrar of Motor Vehicles wrote to me in December, 1992,
telling me I'd be notified of a hearing, he said (in answer to my
question) that when I got the hearing I could ask about compulsory
process.  (There was an ad on the radio just before I was pulled over
that started "Stop what you're doing -- unless you're driving 60mph",
which could lend credibility to my claim that I looked at my speedometer,
which could lend credibility to my claim that I wasn't going 75mph, but
that's a long shot anyway, if it comes down to the officer's word against
mine.)  How would I ask for this, to compel the radio station to give
me a log and transcript?  
-- 
David Chesler ([email-masked] - CURRENT   [email-masked] - SOMETIMES
             [email-masked] - WORK   [email-masked] - ALWAYS)

 They came for the Branch Davidians, but I wasn't a Branch Davidian...

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From: [email-masked] (Larry Kolodney)
Date: 3 May 1995 07:04:21 -0400

THE FOLLOWING IS NOT, OF COURSE, LEGAL ADVICE, JUST MY GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

>  Statutes of limitations don't apply, do they?

"Right to a speedy trial" is a criminal concept.  Once you are charged
with a crime, you have a right to have your trial within a certain
fixed amount of time (so you don't have the crime hanging over your
head forever).

"Statute of limitations" is both a civil and criminal concept, and
refers to the maximum amount of time between the act in question, and
the commencement of legal proceedings.

I may be wrong about this, but I don't think that speeding is a crime
in Mass.  I think it is an administrative offence, so that the
proceeding is civil, rather than criminal.  

Whatever the case, your rights here are probably governed by statute.
You can find this out by going to your local public library, and
looking in the Massachusetts General Laws.  There's probably a chapter
on Motor Vehicle Violations.

-- 
larry kolodney:([email-masked]) 
_(*#&)#*&%)@(*^%_!*&%^!)*&#+!*&$+!?&%+!*&^_)*&#%)*&^%#+&
Free & Common Socage:Knight Service:Gavelkind:Frankalmoign:Burgage

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From: [email-masked] (Mark Eckenwiler)
Date: 3 May 1995 07:07:34 -0400