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Originally Posted by ronin_01R1
here's an update...
went to court yesterday. what a pain in the @ss. got there at 5:15 for my 6PM court date time. i called ahead to say i'd plead not guilty. i got there and they tell me the prosecutor is in court for another matter and could not speak to me. the clerk tells me i would have a chance to speak to him in private prior to going before the judge.
a big group of us gets pulled out of the court room and the prosecutor says we're all pleading not guilty and do not have a lawyer. basically he spoke to each of us and amended the charges depending on teh severity. in florence township, amending any charge carries a $250 "surcharge".
he finally gets to me and asks me if i want him to amend it to no points. i ask him if i could speak to the officer and he says he's not there and that if i want to plead guilty, speak to the officer, and contest the ticket, we would have to reschedule for another date. i thought this part was bs since i already said at the time of scheduling yesterday's date that i would plead not guilty. it's teh courts fault for not preparing their case for my ticket...it should have been dismissed in my opinion. anyways. i didn't want to come back to waste more time on this thing. i took the plea bargain.
in the end, my $100 ticket turned into a $389 bill after the amendment, no points on my insurance. (my insurance would have gone up 600 for 3 years.) i wasted 4 hours in that court house last night. what a waste.
the funniest part about the entire night was that the prosecutor during the plea bargain discussion said the 'surcharge' was excessive in his opinion and the defendents are asked if they want to literally buy our points off the ticket. he called it, "gestapo tactics". (however you spell that).
one last thing - the amending of the charge can be done only 2 times per 5 year period.
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Well song oyu got the true tour of our great legal system. But hey you saved a little more money then having your insurance go up, and you have no points.
So hopefully next time you'll remember to signal when making lane changes/turning.
