A Test Run...

You were driving down the highway and an officer of the law behind you, lights blinking. He tells you he has been following your for ¼ of a mile. This means the cop paced you with his car, using his speedometer. He has given testimony. You ask him to present documentation from a recognized speedometer shop concerning the last time the speedometer in his car he used that day was calibrated.

Outcome
The officer can not produce the documentation. Few police organizations calibrate their speedometers. If they do, the chances are that the officer does not have the documents. And No they can not go get them to try you some other day. The trial is now and the prosecution was unprepared. The prosecution rested its case when they handed the witness over to you. The evidence presented now has a fatal flaw. You must immediately ask for the case to be dismissed.

*Note*: You did not prove Innocent Until Proven Guilty anything; you simply asked for documentation that the prosecution was unable to present. You simply took away their assertion that the speedometer was accurate to a legal degree of certainty. You cast doubt concerning the accuracy of the speedometer and broke their chain of evidence. That is ALL.

The judge knows the speedometer is close to being accurate, but close does not count here. He knows you were going fast. However, the charge is not “going fast,” but going an exact speed based on a device that cannot be proven to be accurate to a legal degree of certainty! Fines are based on exact figures. If you say, “I was not going that fast,” you open the door to a change in the charge. The court can now say that by your own words, you were going over the speed limit. The court can now find you guilty of speeding and impose a fine without a definite speed. The charge can be changed to an arbitrary figure.

*Note*: When you plead not guilty, you are pleading not guilty to the charge of going 15 MPH over the speed limit.