Legal Question in Appeals and Writs in Massachusetts
Winning a false ticket appeal?
I got into an accident last summer. While switching into the left lane, the car in front of me was cut off, slammed the breaks on, and while i was still mid-lane, i rear ended them. The cop came a little while later to fill out the accident report, he said wrote me a ticket, and while he was doing this said ''well, its the first of the month, ticket quotas'' and smiled. He than wrote me a ticket for following to closely. I was NOT following to closely, I was just mid-lane at a very bad time.
My question is, how do I win this ticket appeal? I have a court date scheduled, already. Can the cop even write a ticket to me if he didnt see the accident? He was called later, and I'm fairly certain the person I hit never said I was tailgating. And in addition to this all, the cop that wrote the ticket wrote it in another officers name. Does this matter? When I went to the police station I spoke with the cop whos name was on the ticket a few days later, he didn't remeber writing it, than told me that another officer responded to the call. But the ticket was still written in his name, will this help me at all?
Thank you for your help
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: Winning a false ticket appeal?
I agree with you that this scenario seems odd. It seems likely that this will work out when it gets in front of a judge because the officer must be present to testify to what he saw and the officer whose name is on the ticket can't do that truthfully. It definitely helps that the officer whose name is on the ticket was not present because he is the one who will be summonsed to court. Just follow through with the process, don't get discouraged if you go before a clerk magistrate and lose (the officer does not have to be present at that hearing) and it should work out. Good luck.
Re: Winning a false ticket appeal?
You are always at fault for following too closely if you rear-end another car, regardless of the excuses/circumstances. Had you not been as close as you were, you would not have rear-ended anybody.
The fact that other cars stopped short/cut off, etc is irrelevant. In fact, the point of the law is that in deciding how closely to follow, you should forsee and expect sudden stops by other cars and cut-offs, and adjust the following distance accordingly. The law requires you to expect and protect against such short stops by increasing your following distance. Because the end result in your case was that you hit another car from behind, you were following too closely as a matter of law.
The fact that the officer did not see you following too closely is also irrelevant. The fact that you hit from behind speaks for itself, as explained above.
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