I asked for the Kustom Pro Laser III records and the last calibration date was 10-22-2013,
Also in the police officer report he made a mistake with the name of the school he was near.
Can I wave the ticket due to the above 2 facts?
Go to court and 1 is officer there, if not make a motion to dismiss for failure to prosecute, if there consider asking the court for traffic school or try your defenses or both.
The Kustom Pro Laser III is required to be serviced and calibrated every two years. Sounds like this one is good until 10-22-2015.
Mistake on the school name could be an issue if location is not otherwise clearly indicated. Whether or not they can establish that you were in a school zone in the officer's jurisdiction will depend on the officer's affidavit. Sometimes fighting a ticket is as easy as finding a small error, but usually not. If everything else establishes that this was you, you were speeding and this occurred in a school zone in this agencies jurisdiction the error means nothing.
Ticket defense is about using the Rules of Evidence, Court Rules and Rules of Procedure to exclude evidence. It takes years of law school and ticket defense to truly master this. It usually makes a lot more sense to have a ticket attorney fight this for you.
FYI-Please don't follow advice of attorneys not licensed to practice in YOUR state. In Washington, a traffic infraction is a civil action and the officer can present testimony through a properly submitted affidavit. You are required to provide the officer if you want him present. You do not get an automatic dismissal if the officer does not show up, unless you have correctly subpoenaed him or her. Subpoenaing the officer backfires more often than it helps in many courts. Hoping the officer does not show up is often a poor strategy.
If you want to fight the ticket, hire an attorney. Too many people attempt to fight these tickets on their own and then get stuck when they lose because a judge cannot reduce a school zone ticket fine and the ticket cannot be deferred when you've gone through with a contested hearing. The money you spend on an attorney will be worth it if the ticket is dismissed or reduced to a non-moving violation. Mr. Lawrence is a very experienced attorney in the area. I'd give him a call.
There are several ways to get a ticket dismissed and it is impossible to list every way in this thread. The issues you mentioned here do not sound like winning arguments to me for the reasons stated by Mr. Lawrence. You are at risk of having a moving violation on your driving record, and such violation will be reported to the department of licensing and it will affect your insurance rates for years. If you want a chance of getting out of the ticket completely then hire an attorney. Otherwise, use a deferral. You can only defer a ticket once every 7 years, you have to pay for the deferral, and if you get another ticket within the next year then you are stuck with the deferred violation in addition to the new one. Deferring can be risky. I recommend an attorney.
