Wife lost fix it ticket & officer made mistake

My wife got a tinted window ticket November 2008. We went and had the tint removed within 5 days. They next day we could not find the ticket. We called the court clerk to ask for a duplicate. They told us at that the ticket was not yet in the system and to wait about 20 days or so. We continued to call at least once a week for nearly 8 months. Yet they kept telling us its not in the system.

End of June 2009 we had to return the vehicle as the lease was over. The dealer gave us a check list noting no issues with the vehicle. Around end of August we received a letter noting the ticket is now in the system as the officer had written the wrong violation code and that what caused the delay.

We called the clerk to let them know we returned the vehicle. And they tell us there is nothing they can do and we have to see the judge.

My question is will my wife be in trouble for losing the ticket.? After all had the officer not written the wrong code and it took 10 months to hit the system, we would have been able to get the duplicate or at least get it done before we returned the vehicle.


The code the officer wrote is: 26780 (should have been 26708) and they did send us a correction/amendment 8 month later after returning the car..

We are not trying to get out of the fine. We tried to get it signed off as soon as the car was repaired and called every week to pay our due..

We dont want to blame the officer although he was also at fault...we just want to pay our fine and go home.

We are just concerned since we dont have the car and the ticket was lost that my wife my get in trouble--may be jail??

How will the judge handle the car being returned..we have dealer docs to prove that with a check list from the dealer showing no issues when we returned it??

Thank you and GOD bless.

So your point is since you lost the ticket you didn't know when to appear in court, so you didn't appear at all?

The wrong violation code did NOT keep the ticket from appearing in the system. Whomever was doing the "entering into the system" simply had to look up the code for 'window tint' for it to appear properly.

Your returning the car---what does that have to do with anything? Getting a ticket for window tint does not mean you have to remove it (of course, you run the risk of getting another ticket if you do not but they do not force you to remove it). Why do you need the car to go to court?

This doesn't seem to be that big of a deal, unless you were ordered to appear in court and did not and have an outstanding fine. No one can predict what the judge will do, but if you had a court date and you missed it, you may have a problem. My feeling is ( and this is NOT legal advice, just a guess since that's all anyone can do without a crystal ball) is that losing the ticket is something that happens routinely with people thinking they can get out of the ticket by not having it with them, on them or in their possession. I do not mean to suggest that is what YOU did, but I suspect judges see it all the time. How do you know when to appear in court? They have reissued a court date, I presume?

We rcvd the ticket Nov 2008. Once we rvd the ticket we immediately went and had the tint removed.
Since the officer wrote the wrong code the ticket was never in the system for almost 8 months.

Two days after tint removal we lost the ticket. We called to enqire on a copy so we can get it signed off. Thats when they said its not in the system and to call every week. Which we did for almost 8 months. We stopped calling in June when we returned the car. A month after the return of the car we get a letter that the ticket has now been corrected and is now in the system with a new court date for November 2009.

So it was the error of the officer causing the 8 month delay and of course our fault for losing it , did not help matters. We were also told even if we had our copy they could not do anything with it since its not in the system.

We are going in November to prove we returned the car. Do you still think my wife can be arrested for losing the ticket and returning the car when the lease terms was over...especially since we called every week as instructed and nothing was in the system until after the retrun of the car?

thank you

Thanks for the explanation. But I don't understand why you would be worried about the return of the car. You were under no compulsion to KEEP the car as far as the law was concerned. What is the importance or significance of where the car is to this case at this point?

No, your wife isn't going to go to jail for this---if everything you are saying is true and that is "the whole story" so to speak.

What is the significance and/or relevance of the location of the car?

Obviously they had to have some proof that the work was done to satisfy the ticket and eventually the judge. Without the ticket, I doubt they could be told WHEN to come to court. Thus it truly is a police problem of wrong encoding. They will probably breath a lot easier after their new court date. This has been very stressful for them. So give them a break. Stop harassing them about what you don't understand. They do.

Only someone with shocking ignorance would call asking questions for clarification "harassing". YOU are missing the point of my asking the question.

By asking the question I am trying to get them to articulate if they think they HAD to remove the tint before court. They do not. The police man does NOT have the authority to force them to remove it. It is like getting a seat belt ticket. You do not HAVE to wear the seat belt later. You stand a chance of getting another ticket, but getting the ticket does not necessarily force you to comply.

Good example of this happened for a friend of mine this week. The officer stopped him for having a bumper sticker that said, "For such a small town, this one sure has a lot of < bad word>". He gave him a ticket for an obscene bumpersticker and ordered him to remove it on the spot. He replied he would not remove it since the determination of whether or not it met the legal definition of obscene was for a judge and jury to decide. I represented him in court and told the judge he refused to removed the sticker because according to my state law, obscene meant s3xually explicit. This was a crude word, but was clearly not s3xually explicit. He was not, at any time under any LEGAL compulsion to REMOVE the sticker. Now, AFTER court the judge, if he ruled it was obscene, could force him to remove it or find him in contempt. But we won on the basis of the handy First Amendment. Parallel to this situation:

Lets say the car was totaled in an accident. Then what? What if the car was stolen? Or sold to a junk yard? This is precisely why I am asking why, in their mind, is their not having the car any longer cause for concern? Lets say they sold the car to a friend. Would the judge ask if they changed out the tint? No, because the matter before him is the fact they were OPERATING a car at that precise moment that had window tint that was allegedly too dark. The goal is for them to STOP driving a car with illegal window tint. If they sold the car, or if it was totaled or in this case, returned to the dealer---the objective (for them to not drive a car with illegal window tint) has been met.

I am interested in THEIR line of thinking as to why the car is relevant. It may be that it will bring to mind something RELEVANT that they forgot to MENTION since they do, in fact, keep bringing up the car, as though selling it, or sending it back at lease end is some how something wrong or illegal. I don't know why they would think that, so I ask QUESTIONS to encourage them to explain WHY they are worried about the status of the car.

Moving right along.......... you said that they couldn't know when to go to court without the ticket. They are expect to know because it was WRITTEN on theTICKET that was handed to them. They could have just as easily read it and made a mental note of the date. You are ASSUMING they received the ticket but COULD NOT BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE for the information therein because they LOST the ticket. Ignorance of the law is not a defense, neither is "I lost it" a defense for failure to appear. However, since they have a new court date, apparently FTA is not an issue.

If you know how to ask questions intelligently *Not like your questions about the ten dollar title search---which was so NOT what the poor guy said* and actually LISTEN to the answers, you may actually learn something.

Thank you boykinmama. What people seem to forget is people come here for free advise as we dont have money for attorneys and to be helped and not abused or criticized. While I appreciate Gentlegrace is advise, he/she may decide to do something else than answer these forums since he/she and others on this forum have lost site of what the meaning of helping out is. If you cant be patient, understanding and really read what people in need post than you really should lose your membership to this site. You on the other hand seem to have a handle on what I had put in black and white and reaize haw we are scared for making an honest mistake. Obviously since the officer made an error and so did we by losing the citation, even had we remembered the court date as Gentlegrace noted (which there really isnt one, all you need to do is go with the signed off ticket to the clerk before the date on the ticket), they would not have been able to help us SINCE IT WAS NOT IN THE SYSTEM BASED ON THE OFFICERS ERROR. And come one Gentlegrace how many people really sit and memorize a citation date...please give me a break. And we did what the clerk said and called EVERY WEEK FOR 8 MONTHS only to keep hearing the ticket is not in the system- call back next week. In fact some clerks told us to stop calling every week and call every two weeks...but we did not!, we called every week! My wife volunteers at church, school, carpools 4 kids everyday etc...I believe she has several things on her mind and children to help out. Now on the other hand the officer who does this everyday (who tool valuable time and taxpayer money to give a tint window ticket) made the error that did not help matters. BTW gentlegrace, we have donated what we can afford to the police K9 widows org for over 10 yrs, and we volunteer at our local station once a month...so NO we do NOT dislike the police, but being with them often makes it clear how corrupt, lazy and ignorant most of them are in Los Angeles. And if you look at our posting we NEVER made the return of teh car the issue, it was the court CLERK that did. As when we recvd the amended / CORRECTED ticket 8 months later with a NEW court date we called the clerks again and they noted that since the vehicle was returned that we would NOT be able to pay the fine and need to explain to the judge...hence the significance of the returned vehicle...hence our worry of my wife being in trouble of being in jail...we just are scared since we cant proof the car was repaired. Thank you again all...

Helping others out= telling you what you want to hear. As soon as someone posted telling you it was the police mans fault and not yours, you were satisfied. Clearly, it wasn't an understanding of the law you were after.


I did NOT say you were at fault for not memorizing the court date. My POINT was--which you missed entirely because you are desperate to remove ANY responsibility from your shoulders---is that IN THE EYES OF THE COURT (since 'my eyes' doesn't matter)......you WERE INFORMED of the date when he handed you the ticket. So, losing it does not absolve your responsibility to appear. Example (although Im not sure why Im bothering to educate you, but perhaps someone else in this forum will learn from this) if I am served papers by a process server and I lose them, do I still have to appear? But I lost them--how can I appear if I don't know when to appear? The point is I was SERVED. YOU were told of the date. In the eyes of the LAW (not me) you are required to appear, lost paper or not.

In the case of a lost paper, it is obvious you could simply call the court and ASK when to appear (although now you say you didnt even HAVE to appear---just go pay the ticket--interesting how you didnt have to appear THEN but you are saying NOW you have a date to appear. Right. )However, in most cases all you have to do is call and ASK when to appear---which you DID.

*HOWEVER* (are you still reading?) YOUR case was complicated by a mistake on BOTH ends----and here is the point-----the fact you BOTH made mistakes does NOT NECESSARILY absolve EITHER of you from your respective responsibility---AND law enforcement is FAMOUS for not accepting responsibility for their slip ups while holding YOUR feet to the fire for yours. So to reassure you that there is *no* problem at ALL is premature. You don't know this to be the case. Rationally, it would seem so, but no one has a crystal ball to tell you what will happen when you go before the judge.

SO, if you return and read my comments without a *defensive* eye, you will see I am being factual and objective----it was not intended to be a criticism of you. My stating you were SERVED (as it were) in the sense that you were TOLD of the date means YOU have a duty to appear. Now, if he had not given you a ticket with that information written on it, you could argue you were never TOLD. NOT being TOLD is a defense. Losing a paper is NOT.
It very well may be that the judge will hold the cop accountable for his carelessness. But DO not EXPECT to be automatically excused for your part in this JUST because the COP screwed up.
Um...... what in the WORLD is the defensiveness for? Where did I suggest you were not a upstanding citizen?? All I said was that the fact you were TOLD when the ticket was is ENOUGH for them to hold you responsible to BE there . THAT garners a soliloquy of your church volunteering?? Allrighty then. Great. I also did not suggest anything about you not liking cops. (Shaking head). You are amazingly defensive.

Ah, the CLERK was concerned about the vehicle. Great. Do you think the reason WHY she would be concerned about it SHOULD concern you? Obviously it DOES concern you-----read on........

Lets REVIEW a moment, shall we?

Your first posting said THIS about the car: We are just concerned since we dont have the car and the ticket was lost that my wife my get in trouble--may be jail??

How will the judge handle the car being returned..we have dealer docs to prove that with a check list from the dealer showing no issues when we returned it??

Your second posting added THIS about the car: We are going in November to prove we returned the car. Do you still think my wife can be arrested for losing the ticket and returning the car when the lease terms was over?
Sounds to me like the status of the car IS important to you---or it was until you got someone to tell you what you wanted to hear. Suddenly, you are reassured. Reference to the car takes up a good 30% of your posting. But suddenly it is the CLERKS concern? Why would you MENTION the clerks concern--she isn't here to read this. Ridiculous.

The POINT is it doesn't MATTER of the car was altered or not---you do not OWN the car any longer. Since the matter at hand is YOUR driving with illegal window tint, and the problem has been resolved (No longer HAVE the car so you CANNOT be driving a car with illegal window tint)..... then the location of the car is not an issue.
Users of this forum fall in to two general categories--those who want to educate themselves about a matter so they can better help themselves and secondly those who will troll until someone tells them they are right, pats their hand, and they leave happy. I was mistaken in assuming you were in the first group.

I stated in my very first posting "This doesn't seem to be that big of a deal, unless you were ordered to appear in court and did not and have an outstanding fine." I also went to great lengths to explain (and you entirely missed it, but at least it is here for others who want to be informed) that you did NOT have to remove the tint until the JUDGE determines that you must. Just like people who get tickets for bumper stickers and are ordered, against their First Amendment rights to REMOVE THEM before they go to court, they are not required to do to until a judge determines they must.

The point there was that you did NOT have to remove the window tint. You COULD have gone to court and had an opportunity to explain how you feel it was NOT illegal (unless, of course, you knew it was) and have your day in court. And you did not have to remove it until you DO have your day in court, which is upcoming. That was SUPPOSED to be help you, in particular, with your feelings about rogue cops who flex their muscles against citizens who are not bothering anyone, stopping people with window tint while rapist and robbers roam the streets.

Sadly, you missed the majority of meaning in my posting,choosing to read judgement and accusation in my words , when clearly , I went to great lengths to state I did NOT imply your losing the ticket was INTENTIONAL (this quote from my VERY FIRST POSTING)"..... losing the ticket is something that happens routinely with people thinking they can get out of the ticket by not having it with them, on them or in their possession. I do not mean to suggest that is what YOU did, but I suspect judges see it all the time."

This medium is not unlike teaching school. For every student that doesn't 'get it',there are a dozen more who do. This posting, then, would be for them.

Grace

ANYONE that reads what and how you wrote me, plus all YOUR other postings will come to one conclusion:

YOU NEED SERIOUS MENTAL ATTENTION and a Life

Love ya

AND the moment the opinion of perfect strangers on the Internet matters to me in the least, I will let you know.

Promise.

In the meanwhile, rest assured countless people with more developed thought capabilities than your own will learn from this thread. It is for them I am here. Your opinion of me is irrelevant, both to me and to the purpose of this forum and could not possibly matter less than it already does.

And you're welcome.