“144(8) I Got A Ticket For Running A Red... On An Amber?”

Hey sorry to stray away from your 'white' defense. I have just read another person's forum where they mention that they have recieved a fine of $325... 260 for the fine, 60 for the victims surcharge, and 5 for the court costs. I asked if this was an error on his ticket and Radar Identified mentioned that IS correct. That is the set fine for all of Ontario. Here is the link to the set fines.

On my ticket it is written a 250 fine, with a 50 victims surcharge, and says total payable is 300.00.

THIS IS AN ERROR

Here is a previous court case where the same thing has happened and they have determined that it is a fatal error and must be quashed.

I quote... "(b) where the certificate of offence is not complete and regular on its face, the justice shall quash the proceeding."

Is this my 100% win?

Please advise me on where I should go from here?! Oh I'm excited now!

It is, indeed, a fatal error! There are a couple of ways to proceed here. One is to simply not show up for trial. The JP must then examine the ticket, as you have "defaulted," so to speak. If there are any fatal errors, he's supposed to quash it without you present. If he doesn't quash it, you can then appeal. (Could be a bit complicated but others have done it.)

If you show up for trial, they can amend the ticket and correct the fine.

There may be other options to simplify the process. You should, however, be able to win this, even if it does require a bit of wrangling. There's lots of case law supporting this. The Ontario Court of Appeal was quite clear in the London v. Young ruling (applies here), which has been discussed quite a bit on this forum.

I would also like to point out the obvious: This thread has endurance... So far we've covered:

- R. v. W(D)

- London v. Young

- R. v. Sandhu

- R. v. Nikolovski

- R. v. Tran

- R. v. McGibbon

Just following up on something I hadn't yet responded to:

Biron wrote:I must also say the many JPs, if not most of them, are educated and very well versed in law.

I'm sure they are. Some are more helpful than others, from what I've seen, too.

"I would also like to point out the obvious: This thread has endurance... So far we've covered: "

Yes we have covered alot and I am VERY thankful to everyone that has passed along their knowledge and experience. I'm very appreciative. You guys rock!

All right everyone!

First of all I'd like to thank everyone who helped me out with any questions that I had regarding this case. I'd like to send a special thank you out to Biron and Radar Identified, you guys were an EXTREME help! Thank you!

I spent ALOT of time preparing for this court date, and through research found that the fine was incorrect. For those of you that don't know why this is important, basically you have 1 option at this point, if you want it to be quashed. That is to NOT show up for court, the JP will them examine the ticket and see if it is 'regular on face'. Meaning everything is correct. If the fine is incorrect, and the JP notices, according to case law, they must quash the ticket. If you were to show up, they can just ammend it as it isn't a pertinant part of the case, but without you present they cannot. If you don't show up, and they don't notice the error and convict you, you can appeal it.

SO! That is what happened in my case on the 19th! I didn't show up for court. I called today to find out about my court date. They asked for my Driver's License and said 'you failed to appear?' I said 'absolutely' and he said 'the case was quashed, cancelled' I said 'because of the wrong set fine?' he said 'I don't know they didn't say all I know is it was quashed.' AWESOME! Case closed, DONE!