Road Law – August/September 2021
The old adage of “If you want to play, you have to pay” doesn’t fit well when working in the legal system (other than paying your lawyer). In this edition, we’ll discuss a few situations where paying first is not the correct move and problems that can arise when doing so. We hope you can use this information to your benefit.
Q: I paid a traffic citation two months ago, and now my license is being suspended for too many points. Can you help me?
A: Maybe. If you want to have the best opportunity to resolve your traffic citation in your favor, then you don’t want to pay it before you get some legal advice. The process of paying the citation is a voluntary admission of guilt and also starts the tolling of any of your possible legal rights to change your mind in the future.
Not every state is the same, and you don’t want to have to spend additional money to exercise any rights you have to reset or appeal your case. An example is a state where you have 10 days to vacate a guilty plea or 30 days to appeal a conviction to a higher court for a new trial.
In your case, if there is a legal right to reset or appeal the matter, we would recommend that route.
If you are past statutory deadlines, then it would be at the court’s discretion to allow your case to proceed out of time. If there is no option to remedy the problem in the court, many times, your department of motor vehicles might have an option to take a traffic school course to eliminate some points from your record.
Q: I was pulled over in Illinois and given a citation for “over gross,” and the officer made me pay a bond so they wouldn’t impound our equipment. Did I mess up by paying the money?
A: In this case, you did the right thing by paying the bond. The important distinction is that a bond is paid to secure your appearance back in court and not a payment of the underlying charge, which would be paying the fine.
Q: I paid a traffic citation and later changed my mind. I hired a lawyer to help with the process and he was able to get the charge amended, but my department of motor vehicles won’t correct my record to reflect the final disposition. Don’t they have to fix it?
A: We have encountered this before, and the most likely reason the department of motor vehicles won’t correct the disposition on your record is that they believe it would be “masking.” The masking discussion deserves its own column or book, for that matter, but here goes.
The department of motor vehicles position is usually that a plea of guilty or no-contest was entered on the original charge, a fine paid, and it would be masking if they were to change the entry on your motor vehicle record.
The fallacy of this argument, in our opinion, is that if you have a constitutional right to appeal a case and or vacate your original guilty or no contest plea, then it should also mean that the masking provision in the FMCSR has to also follow this logic and is not a final bell tolling that can’t be undone. LL
This column is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Land Line Magazine or its publisher. Please remember everyone’s legal situation is different. Consult with an attorney for specific advice on your situation.