“When Best To Request Disclosure ? ...”

Received summons for "stunt driving - speeding" less than 2 weeks ago ... summons court date in second week of May.

How soon can your request disclosure?

Is there any negative consequence to requesting it before the summons date?

Is there any significant value to having the disclosure before the summons date?

Court is Caledon Provincial Offences Court, 6311 Old Church Rd.

Does the officer have a time limit to provide information to support summons, after summons is issued?

Is there any way to predetermine (know ahead of time) the prosecutor(s) that will be present at summons date, or any "early resolution conversations"? To try to get an idea of how that prosecutor treats/views these type cases.

I am reasonably sure of what the officer would claim, but not sure of the exact point on the road he is referencing to the radar. [where / when exactly did he get the radar reading] Also concerned about wording, from his perception, being more than necessary; such as a form of exaggeration, or wording specifically tailored to support is view/opinion or even intentional omissions that would disagree with his view/opinion.

The summons date is NOT your trial date. You will show up and they will ask you how you want to plead, guilty or not guilty. Your options are:

1- Plead guilty -not recommended-

2- Plead not guilty and request disclosure and they will set a trial date for you.

3- Request disclosure before you decide how to plead and they will set another summons date for you.

The problem with option 3 is that you have to go back to court again for a second summons date in order to plead to the charge and get a trial date set. So I usually recommend option 2.

You can certainly request disclosure before the summons date, but there is no guarantee they will have it ready by then and you would still need to time to review it anyways, so in my opinion you should just wait until the summons date and ask for it then. NOTE: Remember to request the speed measuring device manual in your disclosure request as well.

Officer does not have to support the summons so to speak (and the officer will not be at the summons date), but when you request disclosure you are basically asking for the officers notes and the officers notes are what he will testify in court at your trial, so you need to review the notes in order to decide if he has everything to support the charge or not. The officer needs to be at the trial date that is set in order to testify and not at the summons date.

There is no real way to know what prosecutor will be there, other than attending court yourself on a regular basis and making note of which prosecutor is there.

Once you get the officers notes/disclosure post it here so we can review. There is no way to guess until we see officers notes.

What is the exact charge(s)?

jsherk wrote:The summons date is NOT your trial date. You will show up and they will ask you how you want to plead, guilty or not guilty. Your options are:

1- Plead guilty -not recommended-

2- Plead not guilty and request disclosure and they will set a trial date for you.

3- Request disclosure before you decide how to plead and they will set another summons date for you.

The problem with option 3 is that you have to go back to court again for a second summons date in order to plead to the charge and get a trial date set. So I usually recommend option 2.

You can certainly request disclosure before the summons date, but there is no guarantee they will have it ready by then and you would still need to time to review it anyways, so in my opinion you should just wait until the summons date and ask for it then. NOTE: Remember to request the speed measuring device manual in your disclosure request as well.

Officer does not have to support the summons so to speak (and the officer will not be at the summons date), but when you request disclosure you are basically asking for the officers notes and the officers notes are what he will testify in court at your trial, so you need to review the notes in order to decide if he has everything to support the charge or not. The officer needs to be at the trial date that is set in order to testify and not at the summons date.

There is no real way to know what prosecutor will be there, other than attending court yourself on a regular basis and making note of which prosecutor is there.

Once you get the officers notes/disclosure post it here so we can review. There is no way to guess until we see officers notes.

What is the exact charge(s)?

The summons is for "stunt driving - speeding - 135 kph in 80 kph zone" -- sites only hwy act 172(1)

There were also summons issued for failure to surrender license, failure to surrender permit, failure to surrender insurance card and operate motor vehicle without insurance. [I have all those things, license, permit(registration) and insurance, just didn't have them in vehicle that day)

All summons were signed by officer except the stunt driving summons.

There were no tickets written that day.

Vehicle impounded, license suspended (7 day) -- administrative suspension, so not sure of its effect on insurance rates.

Driving record is quite clean, and no at fault accidents ever; once someone ran a red light a t boned me at intersection.

There is separate topic on here http://www.ontariohighwaytrafficact.com/topic7529.html, with a wordy discussion (by me) ... essentially the 80 zone is on the end of 410 north, with in my view, insufficient signage of speed limit change. 410 typically has a 100 kph speed limit. That area is a well known for speed traps.

I did try to discuss this with officer that day ... but he had a very quick "I don't want to hear it!" response. I was surprised by that. -- maybe the last person he pulled over gave him a much harder time of it ...

Option 3 sounds like it would delay any effect on insurance rates, the longest, but insurance won't renew for another 10 months anyways.

Yes if you want to drag things out then show up at the summons date and tell them you would like to review disclosure before you decide how to plead. The prosecutor MAY offer you some kind of plea deal as well, but again you nicely say you would like to review the disclosure before you decide whether to accept deal or not.

gbs wrote:

There were no tickets written that day.

Whenever Summons are issued, all charges will be summons.

gbs wrote: essentially the 80 zone is on the end of 410 north, with in my view, insufficient signage of speed limit change. 410 typically has a 100 kph speed limit. That area is a well known for speed traps.

Doesn't Matter. Speeding is Speeding. If the prosecutor is feeling EXTREMELY nice, they will offer you a 35 over, which is still 4 points and $210 + victim surcharge and court costs. Most likely it'll be reduced (which is common) to 49 over, 4 points and $294 + victim surcharge and court costs.

gbs wrote:

I did try to discuss this with officer that day ... but he had a very quick "I don't want to hear it!" response. I was surprised by that.

That's what court is for. If the officer wants to, its their choice. But he is obligated to lay a charge, he doesn't need to listen to your story.

OK Rant Done. I know that JSherk and I have a similar philosophy, of fighting everything until proven guilty, but personally, I wouldn't take this one on my own. Stunt Driving is a serious offense (No, I have not been charged. Just caught and lectured multiple times.). The minimum fine is $2000, minimum 1 year license suspension, and a possible 6 months in jail. I highly doubt you'd want to face those consequenses, which is why you should seek legal representation. Not only that, but the No Insurance charge is a minimum $5000 if found guilty. The other tickets are so minor that it doesn't even matter if you get convicted or not.

The No Insurance ticket will go away if you can show the prosecutor that you did have insurance. The three fail to produce tickets are made out by the fact that you didn't produce those documents so are a bit of a slam dunk if the prosecutor chooses to run with them. That leaves the stunt driving. Do yourself a favour and put out of your mind all your thoughts of whether the law is unfair or whether the speed limit should be higher on that stretch of road - those will only cloud the issue for you - and see if the prosecutor is willing to offer you some sort of a deal on the four tickets. Four tickets is going to really hurt come insurance renewal time but so again is the stunt charge if convicted. It may become a balancing act of accepting a simple speeding charge and 1 or 2 of the other tickets. If you were offered a 49 over charge and no other tickets I'd bite his hand off because if you go to trial on the stunt he has zero incentive to drop the others that are all but impossible to beat and even if successful on the stunt you still end up with three convictions which will send your insurance premium to the stratosphere.

gbs wrote: Vehicle impounded, license suspended (7 day) -- administrative suspension, so not sure of its effect on insurance rates.

There are no insurance implications on a 7 day administrative suspension.

gbs wrote: essentially the 80 zone is on the end of 410 north, with in my view, insufficient signage of speed limit change. 410 typically has a 100 kph speed limit. That area is a well known for speed traps.

Speed limit signs are regulated. That's why they all look exactly the same, appear in the same spots, and are at the same heights. Your solution for overhead signage isn't a solution. They can't just start throwing signs everywhere on a whim. It's not a defense that the sign isn't big enough.

gbs wrote:I did try to discuss this with officer that day ... but he had a very quick "I don't want to hear it!" response. I was surprised by that.

The side of the road isn't a court room. An officer who is unwilling to listen to long lists of rationalizations or justifications can be expected. It's not up to him to convict you.

thanks guys ...

this answer a lot of questions for me.

good to get the information on ADLS (7 day), not being intended to have effects on insurances rates ...

Hopefully, proceeding to trial, can be avoided. Winning, in this scenario, is more about cutting your losses.

Update:

Spoke to prosecutors office ... caledon east.

There is no way to get disclosure before the initial first summons appearance. They simply don't do it. They stated you will be given disclosure on first appearance to summons. They stated they don't even know if "package" from officer has been received yet. They state it's a standard practice. [they were not given info about me or summons numbers, so this appears to be the standard answer]

I suspect disclosure, that they provide, will be whatever the officer files. I don't know what that would be.

Anyone know what is typically in the "standard" disclosure, provided at first summons attendance? I would have preferred having the information before then.

Disclosure should include a copy of the officers notes.

Now the prosecutor has not reviewed disclsosure either at this stage, so they basically will look at it the morning of the summons date and then they will decide to either (i) drop the charge or (ii) offer you a plea deal to plead guilty to or (iii) not offer a plea and proceed to trail on the full charge.

At the summons date you can either (1) ask for another summons date because you would like to review disclosure before you decide how to plead, or (2) say you are going to plead not guilty and would like a trial (along with time to review disclosure).

Option (1) means an extra trip back to the court house for another summons date before they set a trial date, whereas option (2) means you know when the trial date will be.

If the prosecutor offers you a plea deal, don't be afraid to ask "Can we set another date so I can review the disclosure before I decide whether to accept your offer or not?" Most will probably say yes, so this gives you some time to really look over disclosure and really decide whether to accept their plea deal.