No argument out of me. I'm just thinking of the practicality of the matter. You're right, proving innocence is not only nearly impossible, it isn't the constitutional standard. But when faced with the possibility of paying a fine for a ticket on the one hand, and putting my CHL at risk on the other hand, I'll just pay the fine. Besides, it is probably true that 99% of people who are ticketed for speeding were actually speeding.srothstein wrote:Maybe because the law is not that he has to prove his innocence. They have to prove him guilty. If he is truly innocent, that should be pretty hard to do. I honestly know that the system is set up in such a way as to make it more along the lines of proving your innocence, but it is not supposed to be. We need to fight these types of things in the small actions to avoid fighting them as much larger battles later on.The Annoyed Man wrote:I guess my questions would be:
1) Were you speeding?
2) If not, can you prove that you weren't?
3) If not provable, why not just pay it instead of taking the chance of putting anything at risk?
I guess it goes to whether or not your personal moral compass tells you whether speeding is "wrong," or that speed limits are just another constitutional transgression to be disobeyed because you're a free and sovereign man and you don't need no stinkin fascist laws. If your moral compass tells you that speeding is wrong, then you pay the fine. If you think that speed limits are irrelevant and don't apply to you, then you hire a lawyer to see if you can beat the ticket - knowing that you are actually guilty on some level, whether or not you think the standard is a legitimate one.
Personally, I think it goes to the issue of personal responsibility. When the speed limit is posted, I know what it is. If I am exceeding the limit, then I also am aware of that. If I break the law, then I'll accept the consequences. If the consequences are expensive enough, then I likely will not break that law again. And even if I somehow think that I'm innocent, I would still rather pay a fine that I think is unjust than to go through life with a Class C misdemeanor conviction on my record that I will undoubtedly wind up having to explain to somebody down the road. But that's just me.