“Using Centre Lane Improperly”

Marquisse wrote:The crown tried to say the late disclosure was due to my error and late request, but I told the justice that the reason for the late request for disclosure was due to the PO Office's failure to provide Notice for Trial.

That should keep the option open to stay the charge later, depending on when they re-schedule it.

Marquisse wrote:When I saw this I thought "how in the world do I discredit a police officer who is not being truthful in his notes in a palatable way in court!?"!

Hard to do... I guess hammer on him:

- Where did you observe the vehicle enter the centre lane?

- Take a look at this video of the roadway, is this where the offence was observed? Where were you when you observed it?

- Were you moving or stationary? Oh, you were coming over the hill...

- Are you sure you didn't just see the vehicle exiting the lane and made an assumption?

- Did you measure the distance? How did you come to assume it was 200-300 metres?

- Did the defendant signal?

- What other vehicles were on the road?

Etc. Obviously there's a lot more to ask...

Well, I pleaded to a by-law yesterday for the City of Hamilton. No decision could be reached prior to trial whether or not I was even charged under the right Section. One prosecutor was adamant that I was, and another said no, I wasn't. So, rather than risk it, my paralegal said a plea down to a by-law would be acceptable to us, and they accepted. The prosecutor who said I wasn't charged under the correct section took our case to another courtroom and dealt with it there.

Sadly, there was no consensus as to whether or not S 154.1(b) applies. I think it could've been a precedent setting ruling on the application of S.154.1(b) because it actually caused a bit of a crowd of prosecutors to come around, along with some other paralegals, and gather around the prosecutor's desk to discuss the situation. The problem is that S154.1(b) deals with a highway divided into 3 lanes. A 5 lane highway is NOT a 3 lane highway, so that's the technicality. If someone gets charged under my circumstances, it's well worth it to fight it because it really isn't applicable in the circumstances.

By-law infraction is much better than an HTA charge. So looks like a good outcome in the end.

The disagreement among the Prosecutors... this could be useful in the future...