A friend of mine got pulled over tonight in his car because of a “blown out headlight”. Unknowing to me he had an expired/suspended license and it went on from there with the car being towed and the whole 9.
Well the kicker is that the headlight was never out to begin with and still functions perfectly fine. I over heard her on the phone describing how she was going to give a ticket for the headlight being out as well but it “seems to be working now”.
The question is, yes everything was done proper in the scenario besides the original validation for the traffic stop.
Doesn’t the Fruit_of_the_poisonous_tree doctrine apply here?
If the reason he got pulled over to begin with was never valid, all the other violations that were resolved after should be let go?
Irrelevant. Your friend has no proof the light was working when the officer pulled him over. It’s the officers word that it was.
It’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove. And the cop doesnt have to prove anything.
Edit: Fruit from the poisonous tree is usually only used for evidence in criminal law like the example on the wiki page you linked but the principal applies.
Well both of the lights work in the car, untempered since the tow, and lights generally are either blown or not. It’s innocent until proven guilty (technically) and even at the scene of violation she couldn’t even prove that the light was out.
It seemed like a general rule, but I wasn’t sure if it applied to traffic violations as well, which got me curious.
If his license wasn’t suspended then he probably would’ve just got a warning for the headlight since it started working. Considering you get arrested for driving with a suspended license I think your friend is lucky or did he in fact go to jail?
He wasn’t on vacation, Meagan was he just didn’t want to deal with people when the secretary was out :lol
Got to call him anyway, the lose shopping cart that took out my mirror while I was at Advanced is apparently not covered by their insurance as an “act of nature” (high winds). I’m not even sure if it’s worth the trouble for a small claims court. ~500$ for mirror/fender.
i sent him on vacation last year with my tickets. i havent had to call him in a while. dont plan on it anytime soon. i may just go in to see Meagan. :excited
so when the light started to work on scene…did the cop still give your friend a ticket for it?? or just the auo??
i guess your friend could fight the tickets…but it wont be worth it…their license was fuck up plain and simple, it’s not like the cop knew that at the time of the stop…it is what it is…
where i work they advise you to get your shit straight, when you go back to court they reduce the charge…no matter what they should get a lawyer for the auo…
yea its pretty much the cop’s word against your friend’s so he’s pretty much screwed, but like stated earlier, lucky he didnt get arrested for driving on a suspended license…the fact he has a suspended license must say enough about his driving habits dont you think?
saratoga county sherriffs actually have plate readers now on top of the cars along side the lights so they dont “NEED” a valid excuse other than the fact your license came back on their monitor suspended, etc. trust me, i found out the hard way last summer. passed a cop just as i was about to cross the rexford bridge… nothing else could have provoked the traffic stop… i wasnt weaving, my windows were all down so tint wasnt a factor and i had the stock exhaust on at the time so noise levels were at a minimum…the plate reader got my plate… he saw the suspension pop up on his screen and i got yanked. kinda fuckin blows… but now that thoe plate readers are in effect they dont really need much else as far as probable cause because its right there in front of them via dmv linked computers. ya follow?
they only check your registration status through dmv, they have to manually look up your license which takes a couple minutes. They have no way of knowing if it’s you driving the car or not, so if the registration is valid and your drivers license is not, they can’t pull you over for that. Instead, they say one of your headlights was out and pull you over, check license… and BAM! AUO in the third.
negative… the new plate readers check the validity of the drivers license… if the plate is registered to you even if the registration and insurance is all in working order, it pops up with a message on their screen… trust me… i sat on the side of the road for 45 minutes talking to the cop about it while i was waiting for the tow truck to come get my car. :headbang
That’s cool and all but the first cars to get them in the area were Schenectady Parking Enforcement, who share storage space in my garage. I physically rode in one of the cars and used the software, it only checked registration against whenever the database was updated.
