How to handle Traffic Court ignoring basic rights I requested a trial by jury in WA state for a traffic ticket (I know not a standard or suggested move as I understand, but I figured if I was going to court, I might as well have the satisfaction of at least seeing my rights in action.) However, the judge denied my request for jury, and even went so far as to say that no such right to trial by jury existed for civil cases. (which appears to be a direct violation of Washington State code http://www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/?fa=court_rules.display&amp;group=sup&amp;set=CR&amp;ruleid=supcr38 in addition to being unconstitutional claim.) That said, I have no idea how to go about appealing the ticket &amp; penalty payment, or if I even should, and instead directly sue the court for ignoring my rights (and how to go about that).
You do not automatically have the right to trial by jury in traffic court. The government only requires courts to allow trials by jury when it is not a petty offense. Refer to Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145 (1968): Crimes carrying possible penalties up to six months do not require a jury trial if they otherwise qualify as petty offenses, Cheff v. Schnackenberg, 384 U.S. 373 (1966). ... In the federal system, petty offenses are defined as those punishable by no more than six months in prison and a $500 fine. Since most traffic violations do not involve jail time and do not exceed a $500 fine, most traffic violations are also not eligible for jury trials as defined by the government. Presumably the law is built this way so as not clog the courts with a bunch of people demanding jury trials for very minor infractions that need not be tried by jury. The Washington State Civil Rules you reference do not grant any further rights to trial by jury not already granted otherwise. It can be quickly summed up as saying that trial by jury rights cannot be revoked, and outlines how one should go about requesting a trial by jury. If you were fined more than $500 and were denied a jury trial, consult an attorney in the area about the situation.
Not necessarily. Your own statements and the statements of the officer would be legally sufficient to convict you. Also, your statement that you don't believe you are at fault is strongly at odds with a widely held interpretation of the traffic laws (not stated in the formal language of these statutes). The prevailing interpretation of the traffic laws is that you are always at fault if you rear end someone because you failed to maintain a safe distance, pretty much as a matter of strict liability and regardless of the circumstances, because a safe distance is almost by definition a distance that it is possible for you to come to a full stop from if the care in front of you suddenly comes to a stop for any reason. The only situation I can imagine where there wouldn't be liability for rear ending someone would be if you were at rest behind them at a stop light and they actively backed up into you. In practice, almost any judge and almost any jury, would convict you of failure to maintain a safe distance if you rear ended someone absent the most extraordinary of circumstances. I honestly don't know any lawyer or likely potential juror who wouldn't convict you under these circumstances with only the testimony of the police officer and your own testimony (which you would have to offer to have any shot at avoiding a conviction) to establish that you did indeed rear end someone. Police are allowed to lie to suspects of crimes, and often simply do not have an accurate understanding of how the legal system works. So, you are not entitled to rely on a statement made by a police officer. Of course, it is also certainly possible that his statement is consistent with local practice in your neighborhood traffic court. So, showing up to contest the charge might still make sense, and it wouldn't be uncommon to receive a plea bargain with fewer points against your license, just for showing up to court.
The problem with Solution 2 is that government officials in the United States enjoy qualified immunity with respect to actions that they did while acting under color of law. It's not total immunity, but if they do things by the book, they cannot be prosecuted even if something goes wrong (even when doing things by the book, Police deal in very volatile situations and things can still go wrong because of an X factor to specific for the training manual to cover.). In other cases, it may be because multiple officers are working the scene and Office A lied to Officer B about the situation. Consider Officer A pulls over a suspect and realizes it was someone who was suspected of a crime, but couldn't prove it. He calls for back up and Officer B arrives. Upon arriving on scene, Officer A tells B to search the trunk of the car despite the fact that A had not received consent from the suspect nor has a warrant, nor cause to make a search of a trunk of a vehicle. B makes the search and finds [the bloody knife/the stash of drugs/the smoking gun/the match to a child's shoe that was missing from the kidnapping scene/ insert other incriminating evidence]. Under system (2), since it was Officer B who made the illegal search, B would be liable for it, even though Officer A lied about having legal reason for a search of the trunk space. But what's more... if the evidence is gonna be used anyway, what's to stop the cops doing it again? After all, there is very little recourse for those who are illegally searched to contest this in court (If I'm illegally searched and don't have anything on me, I have to take this to civil court, which is a different animal than Criminal Court and exposes me to broader Discovery... aka gives the cops free reign to search my property for a hell of a lot more illegal things.) or just sit back and count my 4th amendment rights (the section of the constitution protecting against unwarranted search and seizures) as worth less than the paper they're printed on. Oh, and by the way... that second word seizure... that means that they will be taking my property (or myself if they arrest me) and will not be giving it back for some time while they process it... if it's a legal to hold item (like my laptop that I do work on) that's going to make it harder for me to do my job which injures me further in lost business and income. In other cases, it could be they have a warrant for a large item (a stolen big screen tv) and while searching for it, open my sugar bowel and find evidence of a crime unrelated to theft of the television (i.e. opening a baggie of weed). This is actually an illegal search because, unless I am a wizard, a Time Lord, or Mary Poppins, there is no reason why a container smaller than a big screen TV should ever be searched when looking for a Big Screen TV and the cops should logically see this as out of bounds of the search warrant. The nature of this is damaging before the legality of the search can be determined, and because the search may have been out of scope of the warrant that was otherwise justified, the rule of making the evidence of a crime inadmissible was held in order to prevent LEOs from doing this because they could. This rule also started to take formation prior to the Revolutionary War. British Law had ruled against compelled confessions being inadmissible as evidence in 1769, a full six years before the Revolutionary war started (1775) and seven years before the publication of the Declaration of Independence (1776). Now there are some exceptions that can get the evidence brought back in, such as plain view (&quot;The suspect's vehicle is a pick up truck with an open bed, the murder weapon was lying in the bed covered in blood&quot;), inevitable discovery (&quot;We have developed evidence by other means that would have lead us to this evidence legally&quot;) and Exigent Circumstances (&quot;We believed someone inside the property was in grave danger if we did not enter the property immediately and that's when we found a cache of stolen Big Screen TVs!) and Good Faith (the Warrant was authorized for the wrong street address of the target but we found the evidence of an unrelated crime in a place the warrant authorized us to search. Everything but the goofed up address was done by the book.).
It's called police and prosecutorial discretion to discern when to arrest and prosecute; and that situation in particular is also the result of a decision of the jury of the court of public opinion. Permits are required to sell on the street in Oakland. But not everyone who sells has a permit, and not everyone who is confronted about not having a permit is arrested and prosecuted. There are simply too many potential cases to prosecute. And, the police officer has the discretion to ticket or not. When you get pulled over while driving or riding a bike, you don't always get a ticket, since the officer has the option of discretion. When the officer responded and found an eight year-old selling water, he obviously was aware of the fact that it was a violation. But he was also aware of the court of public opinion. What is it going to look like if he arrests an eight year old and their parent? Allison Ettel was right, in a purely legal sense, to make the report. And technically, the child (and adult) needed a permit. And could have been ticketed and prosecuted. But it was Ettel was tried and convicted in the court of public opinion, and she lost her case. Happens a lot.
It's a gray area. You won't know for certain until a case is tried by a court. Regulatory bodies are notoriously assertive on the matter of jurisdiction. If there is a gray area, they often assert jurisdiction first, then let the judiciary limit their authority. Also, if you try to ask the regulatory body for an opinion or "permission" in advance (as a prudent person might think to do), they might offer you one if you are lucky. But they will most likely qualify it as "non-binding." In other words, they give themselves wiggle room to change their mind at a later time to file an action against you. The long and short of it is, the scenario you describe is likely to at least cost John Smith a fortune in legal fees to litigate the matter with the California authorities. So it would be prudent not to give the advice in the first place. Even if he were to ultimately eventually prevail on the action.
Why does the one country that promotes constitutional democracies above all others not have a judicial branch specifically for those matters? I know SCOTUS will hear these matters . . . I have had it mention that SCOTUS hears less than a hundred cases a year. Something which sounds incredibly low. A constitutional court profoundly limits the extent to which relief for violations of the constitution are judicially reviewable relative to the U.S. status quo. All courts from traffic court on up hear these matters and adjudicate constitutional issue in the status quo. It is also helpful to recognize that the U.S. Constitution regulates government conduct, not necessarily only though the device of determining that legislation is or is not constitutional. If a police officer stops you without having reasonable suspicion to do so, he has violated the U.S. Constitution, without regard to what the statutes of the state in question say. If evidence is seized without probable cause and this evidence is introduced in court over your objection in a criminal case, the government has violated the constitution and you are entitled (unless it was harmless error) to have your conviction vacated. If a tax collector seizes your property for unpaid taxes without first affording you due process to dispute their right to do so, the government has violated one of your constitutional rights. The Constitution imposes affirmative duties and obligations on the government, it does not merely invalidate laws enacted as unconstitutional. Most instances of constitutional adjudication involve government conduct and not the validity of government enacted statutes.
Laws are different around the world and you didn't bother to state your location, but typically no- this is not how the system works. What would be the point? There's no defendant. You, the plaintiff would argue against thin air and then what? The court rules in your favour, declares this illegal, and nothing happens because there's no defendant. Is it so you can use this ruling if you find out later? Pretty sneaky. Let's look into how this would actually work. You bring up a case- Jackson vs a mannequin or something. You make your arguments. The defense makes literally no defense. The judge rules in your favour, with a result of nothing as there is no defendent. Next, you find the culprit and bring a case against them. You point out that this is illegal because we came to that decision last week. What's that defendant? An argument against it being illegal? Too bad, the decision has been made. When I posted this answer, it was before the &quot;Nyah, I was ranting about government spying but was deliberately vague- aren't I clever?&quot; comment and I assumed it was against, say, a neighbour but it doesn't really matter. You cannot have a system that makes a judgement without a defendant so it can be applied later.
If they have no legal grounds then it would be trespass to chattels However, they do have legal grounds. Following the procedure laid out in the relevant Act makes the car refuse under the Act notwithstanding your opinion. Move it or lose it. Or seek an injunction preventing the council removing the vehicle- this will likely fail.