Ticket Errors: Law Enforcement Officers Just Can't Seem to Follow the Rules Articles / Info Posted by dpakula on Sep 11, 2005 - 08:29 AM Our firm boasts an approximate 50 percent dismissal rate for our ticket clients. How do we do this? The most common reason for dismissal is law enforcement error when writing the ticket. Although law enforcement officers are trained in this area, it seems that they keep making the same mistakes over and over. Don't get me wrong -- I'm not complaining! But it seems ironic that law enforcement officers, who are responsible for ensuring motorists' compliance with traffic rules, have their own troubles complying with the ticket writing rules. Read on and I'll explain how law enforcement officers break the rules every day -- and get paid for doing it! The law requires that a person charged with a traffic infraction be advised of the nature of the charges against him or her. This allows the person being charged (the defendant) to defend himself or herself. The Uniform Traffic Citation, a/k/a "ticket," is the form used to provide the required notice to the defendant. If you look at the Uniform Traffic Citation form, you will see that it requires that certain information be filled in. It also contains boxes that may be checked. The ticket is designed to make it easy for law enforcement officers to provide the information required by law to be given to each defendant. Aside from the basic identifying information, the ticket requires the officer to fill in the location of the alleged incident, the statute number of the infraction being charged, and several other required facts about the alleged incident. There are also a few blank lines in the middle of the ticket that may be filled in with additional information in certain cases. Perhaps the most common ticket writing error that leads to dismissal of cases relates to the statute number requirement. Each traffic offense has a corresponding section or sub-section in the Florida Statutes. The problem with writing the correct statute number for the alleged offense arises from the fact that there may be more than one statute that applies in a given situation. While law enforcement officers receive training in this area, it is probably safe to say they did not receive law school training and they are not legal scholars. Many times even lawyers and judges disagree about which is the correct statute number in a given situation. Hence, it is natural that law enforcement officers frequently make mistakes when writing in the applicable statute number. Going through every possible ticket error is beyond the scope of this article. Please be aware that not every ticket error results in dismissal. However, there are enough areas of potential dismissable error on the face of the Uniform Traffic Citation form to keep traffic ticket lawyers like me busy for the next millenium. This article is from Florida Traffic Ticket Defense   http://floridatrafficticketdefense.com/ The URL for this story is:   http://floridatrafficticketdefense.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=12