From: George on Thursday, July 9, 1998

State: Canada

Story: I put my sate as New York, but it wasn't, because the incident happened in Canada. But it's still a pretty good story.

I was driving in Toronto, Canada, when I was pulled over for speeding. It was 2am, and noone on the road. I wasn't a danger to anyone.

Anyway, the officer pulled me over and said that she CLOCKED me with radar going 78km/h (30 miles/h?) in a 40km/h zone. She gave me a "break" and only gave me a ticket for going 15km/h over. But, in Canada, it dosen't matter. Insurance premiums go up $200 for ANY speeding ticket. Going 15 over is looked at the same way as if I was going 100 over.

Well, I thought this was a bunch of crap and I decided to take it to court. What a useless ticket. 2am? Who was the cop protecting from my "excessive" speed. Obviously noone. Even the cop admitted that she folowed me for about 3 or 4 miles before deciding to pull me over. If I was such a safety concern, don't you think she would have done it sooner?

So, like I said, I asked for a court date. To piss off the government I asked for tons and tons of discovery. The officer's notes, the calibration certificates for the radar gun, the officer's training records, etc.

This is where the worst part comes. Evidently, not many people ask for discovery for minor charges, like speeding. So when I handed in my request, the prosecutor's were real slimy--sleasy in every sense of the term. On my form I had my ticket number, the trial date, the date of the offense, etc. I also listed my phone number in case of any problems. But even that didn't stop the slimeballs. Apparently my form was missing one bit of information: the charging officer's badge number. Even though the prosecutor's had this ON RECORD (I have internal documents to show this), they decided that this would be a good way to get out of having to give me my evidence. They quickly returned my "incomplete" request back to me in the mail--DURING A POSTAL STRIKE!! I had even put my telephone number on the request, but of course they chose to ignore it. Also, they already had this "missing" information. Why did they send it back to me in a postal strike? To save time? Impossible. It takes more time to write an address, seal an envelope and mail a letter than it does to pick up a telephone and dial a phone number (again my phone # was on the request, and I could have given them the badge number right away!).

What this did was delay discovery for about one month. The postal strike lasted about 3 weeeks, and then there was a backlog of mail to be delivered. Anyways, as soon I got my request back to me, I filled in the missing information (the officer's badge number) and resubmitted it to the prosecution's office. By the way, I didn't like their dirty tactics, so I made my resubmitted discovery motion twice as long as my first one was. I asked for EVERYTHING!!

After I resubmitted the discovery, there was still 2 months beofre trial. Long enough to gather evidence right? Wrong. I called one week beofre trial and the disovery was still not ready. They hadn't even started on it yet! This is a speeding ticket...not murder. It would probably take 1 hour to gather.

I was a little pissed at the delay, and I told the prosecutor on the phone that we should set up a new trial date. Discovery was not given to me yet, and I wasn't going into trial unprepared. The prosecutor said fine.

Well, come the originial trial date, when the prosecutor was supposed to tell the judge that trial had been moved, I was backstabbed. I didn't show up to court because I was told I didn't have to, the prosecutor said that they would set up a new date with the judge and inform me about it later. But, this is not waht happened. Later, I learned that the prosecutor had tried to convict me in my absense. She never mentioned one thing about a new trial date, and she tried to convince the judge that my absense was due to the fact that I didn't care about the charge or about the trial. Luckily, the judge didn't buy this and delayed trial himself. Luckily.

After hearing about what had happened, and how the prosecutor had lied and backstabbed me, I called their office furious. I said that this was the second time I had been screwed over by them, the first was when they returned my discovery request in the postal stricke. To my disgust, the prosecutor admitted that they had screwed me over, and that they had screwed me over before, but she said that "I should have known better." Apperently, when they returned my documents in the mail during the postal strike, I should not have trusted them in any other matters. The prosecutor told me that I was stupid to trust that she would set up a new court date, and that I was stupid to take her word that she would set up a new court date. Based on my past experiences with the prosecutor's office, I should have EXPECTED that they would lie to me and try to convict me in my absense. Oh yeah, she also said things like "even if you were convicted in your absense, you could have appealed"--and--"your just a number here"--and--"this sort of thing happens all the time."

Furious, I asked how to lodge a complaint against their office. The prosecutor wouldn't tell me. By the way, prosecutors in Canada are self-regulated. There is no way to sue them, etc. They are supposed to regulate and punish themselves. Fancy how something that a self-regulating orgainisation won't even tell you how to lodge a complaint, isn't it? Not only that, but the prosecutor wouldn't tell me her name, or the name of anyone else in the office.

A few days after this, I got my disocvery--I now had access to all the evidence that was relevant to my charage and/or that would be used against me. If you remember my original request was quite lengthy, and I was expecting a lot of documents. Yeah right. What I recieved was a SINGLE sheet of paper, one sided. There were two officer's in the car, I only got one of their names. I only got one set of notes. That's it. No calibration records for the radar gun, no training certificates, nothing.

On top of that, the evidence was clearly fabricated. The argument of the prosecutor's was that radar-gun information was not provided because "pacing" was used. Pacing is when the cop car follows you, and the cop can tell how fast you are going by looking at their own speedometer (if the cop is following you, she is going the same speed as you are). This was a lie becuase I clearly remember the cop telling me she CLOCKED me at 78km/h. I even seem to recall her asking if I want to get out and check the radar reading for myself (she had saved the speed reading into the radar gun display).

Not only that, but there are clear indications on the notes of fabrication. The date of the offense was Sept.9. The notes were done in a notebook. Picture a notebook in your head. Obviously on the front pages of the notebook are the things that the officer wrote first and on the later pages are the stuff that the officer wrote later. In other words, the stuff written near the front of the notebook is going to be older than the stuff written at the end of the notebook. That's undisputable.

Yet, on these notes, dated Sept.9, you can see the faint out line of dates like Sept 14, Sept 28. To explain these faint outlines best, its best if you picture a carbon-paper thing, i.e. the recipt that most people need to sign when they use a VISA or MasterCard. You write on the top sheet, and stuff goes through to all the sheets underneath. That's what happened in the officer's notebook. On the officer's notes for my offense, dated Sept. 9, you can barely make out the dates Sept. 14 and Sept 28, because obviously those pages were ABOVE the page with the Sept.9 notes. Sept 14 and 28 were written on top of the sept. 9 notes, and that's how those dates got transfered onto the page with notes from Sept. 9. That's the only way it could have happened. What that means is that Sept 14, and 28, were ABOVE the notes dated Sept9. This makes no sense, because as stated ealier notes which are closer to the beggining of the notebook are supposed to be OLDER not more recent. Sept 14 and 28 is certainly more recent than Sept 9--and it dosen't make sense my Sept. 14 and 28 would be at the beginng of the notebook, and Sept 9 would be closer to the end.

I have a theory on this. I asked for a lot of radar stuff. And the cop, being the lazy idiot that most cops are, rather than providing radar evidence chose to fabircate her notes to show that she had bee "pacing." This would make my pleas for radar evidence irrelevant, and save her a lot of trouble.

But, I didn't let her get away with it. If she thought that she could get out of work by claiming that she was "pacing" me rather than using a radar gun, she was dead wrong. I promptly filed a new discovery request, asking for things like calibration records for the police car's speedometer, the layout of the speedometer (electronic readouts give more accurate readings that non-electronic speedometers),etc.

Eventually trial came. Just before trial I did research about my case. I found out that the speed zone was a 50km/h zone, not a 40km/h zone like the cop had said on her ticket. I also had a video taken of the street, showing speed limit signs that clearly state 50km/h.

I phoned and requested a VCR for trial. I hung up. Quickly realizing my mistake I called back and requested a TV as well. I wouldn't have been surpised if for trial I was given a VCR, but not a TV because "I didn't ask for it." I was told the TV and VCR would be there, and if there was problems I would be notified.

Guess, what? I wasn't notified. I got to trial, and the VCR wasn't there. Neither was the cop for that matter. Neither was any of the evidence that I had asked for (like the calibration of the speedometer, etc.). The shifty-eyed prosecutor told me not to worry about these things, as they would drop my charges anyway.

I waited 1 hour before my case was called. Guess what? They didn't drop the charges. The cop was there after all. Wow, how could the prosecutor not have seen her? Incredible isn't it?

I protested to the judge about the missing VCR. The prosecutor replied that they had a 3 day "policy", and that I had to order the VCR three days ahead of time. I only asked for it 24 hours in advance. The prosecutor vividly descirbed how it is gruling work to haul a VCR and TV "down three flights of stairs" and how time is needed. Believe it or not, the Judge believed that crap. THERE IS AN ELEVATOR IN THE BUILDING!! There are 3 elevators in the builing. It takes 30 seconds to get a VCR! 3 days?! Who are you kidding?

I also told that judge that I had not recieved adequate disclosre. The prosecutor said that they "coudn't find" any requests. Then I said that I had hand delivered the documents and had signatures to prove that they had recieved them. Then the prosecutor said that they "lost" my most recent request, and that her records show that I was already given disclosure (remember that one page of falsified notes?).

I told the Judge that I didn't even have the name of one of the two officers. I didn't have any information on when the accuracy of the officer's speedometer was tested or how it was tested.

In Canada, Judges who do speeding tickets have LITERALLY no education in law. This guy literally could have been a cashier at McDonald's before he put on his robe. It shouldn't come as a surprise that he was a complete moron with little ethics, and an even smaller idea of justice.

The Judge, believe it or not, ruled that I HAD been given enough discovery. When I said that I at least wanted the name of the second officer on the scence, the judge seemed confused. "Why do you want it" he asked. I answered, "Because it's relevant, and the law clearly states that ALL relevant documents must be handed over to the defense, wether inculpatory or excupatory, wether the prosecution plans to use it in the trial or not." 

To this the judge relplied with logic that only he can understand. He said that slthough the law reuqired that all relevant documents be provided, "how do you know it is relevant if you don't have it?" In other words, how do I know that the second officer's notes are relevant if I had never seen them? He denied my motion because I couldn't prove the relevance of the notes. Under his logic, you can only ask for documents if they are relevant, but you cannot determine their relevance unless you already have them and have examined them. Cool. What a moron.

I also talked to the judge and complained about how the prosecution had screwed me over. He cut me off half way through my complaint by calling ME obnoxious! I wasn't even using inflamatory terms. I was simply stating FACTS. Evidently, it's obnoxious if you have the audacity, as a memeber of the "general public" to question the integrity of a "respected" government official, like a prosecutor. The system is great isn't it. I'm the obnoxioius one, I'm in the wrong. What a brillinat man!

By sheer miracle, I got the case delayed again, to Nov. 16 of this year. This time, I went right away 8 months in advacne to request a VCR. I didn't want the "3 day policy" to screw me over again. To my "surprise" I ran into another roadblock. The clerk at the court told me that I needed THE COURT'S ORDER to be able to request a VCR. I quickly talked to the judge and he told me that the VCR was an issue that he had no connection with. I forced him to talk with the clerk, and I'm supposed to call a week before trial to arrage the VCR. I KNOW something is going to happen. I'm gonna bring my own frigging VCR.

Since this time, I have gone to the highest governemnt officials with my complaint. I spoke with the Assistant Attorney General, and he forwarded my case to the Chief prosecutor for the city of Toronto. I want these guys hanged. I'm also thinking about filing a constitutional motiion to dismiss my speeding ticket due to "prosecutorial misconduct." I think I have a good case, but who knows how the others will think. This time though, I will get to speak with a REAL judge, one who has a law degree, and not some stiff who has no clue what's going on.

Anyways, that's my story. That's all so far. I hope I haven't gone on too long (although I know I have). Bye.