“Stopped For Truck Inspection, Charter Challenge 10 (b)?”

I was taught differently from OPS Copper. Detention or arrest triggers RTC but there is an case law exception for traffic stops that are of a brief duration, ie a speeding ticket. If I was to inspect a vehicle for 2 hours I would have been giving RTC.

Having said that, it's all up to the judge on the day and I can't imagine a judge throwing out the evidence even if they do think there was a breach.

OK, lots of good advice, some disagree, some agree.

I do have my A license, but I am not a trucker. My job is delivering trailers to film sets and maintaining them. Our primary job is not trucking, it is just something we have to deal with. It was my first inspection, and I have never been into a weigh station as all my worker is local.

My point is that the stop was by Police, not MTO or at a weigh station.

I believe I can get off on some tickets like the ones that were given to both myself and the owner, but the one I really want to beat is the handled device ticket. That is the one that I admitted to, incriminating myself, because I had not been told of my right to counsel.

So again, all I am hoping is that I can raise an argument that is good enough to put a little doubt in the judges mind, enough for him to throw it out. If I can back it up with a little case law I think I am good to go

Here are a couple threads you should read:

Don't talk to police:

Representing yourself:

This is an update to this thread

I retained a paralegal, and he requested disclosure for me. The trail was on Feb 23, 2016. I didnt attend because we had not received disclosure, so we weren't ready to proceed. We were given a new trial date of April 4th, 2016. That works out to 9 months, 15 days from the date of the offence. So no go for 11B (I guess?)

So this really sucks for me on many levels. I feel I am being jerked around by the prosecution by them giving disclosure on the day of the trial. They must know that this will mean a new trial date. So this is basically the worst outcome for me. The trial is not far enough away for an 11b, I will have to pay my paralegal more money, and I still have these charges hanging over my head. Personally they are causing a great deal of concern because of the possible insurance penalties, and how it may effect my ability to work. I have been looking to change jobs but this is making the decision more complicated and it is holding me back advancing to a better job. It has caused a lot of tension between my employer and myself because for some explainable reason the police did not submit the tickets that my employer got and my employer has basically said its my problem now.

I have not seen the disclosure yet, the trial was 2 days ago.

How should I proceed? The officer had a body camera. I feel it is important to see the video of the initial stop to see if he followed the proper procedure. Should we ask for the body cam video? I think this may be difficult for them to produce because it happened 6 months ago, it is a new technology that they have to deal with, and maybe they dont have the procedures in place to save and reproduce the video.

Should I hire a lawyer? I feel that the paralegal may just look to negotiate the fines down as much as possible, rather than mount a tough defense. He has even mentioned that he knows the officer who stopped me.

thanks for the help

You are not the first truck driver to ever be stopped. Don't you think that if there were any chance at all for a charter arguement it would have been used, successfully in the past? Do not waste your time on it...The MTO and Police are well covered by statute to do what they did in regards to your stop. Yes, a class G licence is perfectly fine for many, not all, commercial motor vehicles and for doing the pre trip inspection reports. What is your Registered Gross Weight? and how much did you weigh in at? These all seem like legitimate charges, with the only questionable one being the over weight one. I would bet large money if you go in looking for a deal, they will give you one. They will likely drop 2 or 3 depending on your record and the company's record.

Yes, I think the 10B challenge is a dead end.

I am looking for ideas going forward. I actually started a new thread because I think we beat my last argument to death, but the moderator merged the threads into one.

Heres the thing. When the police were giving me the stack of tickets, they were giving a similar stack of tickets to the owner of the truck. The expired safety, no cvor, and overweight vehicle, plus two more different tickets were given to the owner. It was explained to me that they police understand that some charges such as the expired saftey, cvor and overweight were somewhat the responsibility of the owner, so they give the same tickets to both the driver and the owner, expecting that the owner will take responsibility for the ones that are his. Yes, I understand that as the driver I should just refuse to drive the truck, but that is basically just quiting, I was not ready to quit that day, though I am looking to move on. The police did not submit the owners tickets, so he got off. So 3 of these tickets I feel are not mine. At the very least these should be dropped. I also got a ticket for not doing an inspection report. I dont care about that and would be happy to plead guilty to that. That leaves the handheld device ticket. It was from last summer so it was the old $280 ticket. I want to get off that one.

I am thinking an early resolution meeting, after I review the disclosure, to see what deal they are willing to make?

any suggestions going forward?

Thanks for looking

If you are going to hire a paralegal, then you should hire one that is willing to discuss the disclosure with you and possible defenses. You said they gave it to paralegal at trial? Then you should get a copy of it from paralegal. Did the original request for disclosure include a request for the video? If not, then you should send another request for the video (assuming you think it will help your case, not hurt it).

You need to review the disclosure and see if the elements of each charge are in the notes. Again, your paralegal should review this with you.

If all the elements of charges are in the notes, then a plea deal may be worth considering. If there are elements missing, then taking all the way to trial might be an option.

The tickets you got are more on you than the owner. If you hold an A class then you already know that in addition to insurance, ownership and validation, that you are responsible for making sure that you have the CVOR Certificate, the pre-trip inspection and valid inspections for truck and trailer. If the owner does not provide them you don't drive until they are provided to you, it's not a matter of quitting, any professional driver would not be willing to break the law to make his boss happy.

The commercial truck tickets that you got are hard to beat because you either gave the officer the proper paperwork or you didn't. I would expect your paralegal to ask for a deal. I assume you hired a paralegal that specializes in commercial truck offences. Being convicted of all of these charges will make you essentially uninsurable and unemployable as a driver.

Without disclosure you do not know the nature of the overweight charge. This one is possibly winnable depending on the details.

If the ticket was for having an expired CVOR, you should be able to get out of that one because as a driver you have now way of knowing the status of the CVOR. But if you didn't surrender the form then it's on you.

At the end of the day I you can't anything but hire the best guy you can afford and hope he knows what he's doing.

"Being convicted of all of these charges will make you essentially uninsurable and unemployable as a driver." Not so, there are many, many truck drivers out there with horrible records, and yet they are still employed. He was driving an F450, so he may, or may not require an "A" licence...it depends what the registered gross weight is and if he is towing over 4,600kg...he may require a Restricted "A" or even a "D".

Either way, he will get a deal in court, it is very rare they would want to go to trial on all of the charges. The truck inspectors usually have their stuff tight so I wouldn't risk a trial. The company has shown their true colours, they are not backing their boy. Time to look for a new company...

Update

My paralegal has been requesting disclosure, and it has been either incomplete or the notes have been illegible. We then had a date ' to be spoken to" which got no results, and another trial date has been set

My new date is July 26 which is 13 months and 7 days after the initial traffic stop. Please tell me I now can get off with an 11b?

I also imagine I will get off the handheld device ticket because the officer who stopped me on the highway, who may have seen me talking on the phone, is not the officer who wrote the ticket and that officer is not the officer in charge and has not been showing up to court. How can I be convicted of using a handheld device if the officer does not come to court?

Thanks

The officer that witnessed you supposedly talking on your phone MUST be at the trial in order to testify, otherwise if the trial starts and the officer is not there, then they will have to drop that charge.

You can google information on filling an 11b, however you will need transcripts of all your previous court appearances because they need to be reviewed to determine if any delays should be counted against you or the prosecution. For example if you asked for a new trial date because you could not make the one set up already, then that would count against you and not the prosecution and the time between trials would not be counted towards an 11b because YOU requested the delay.

And the timer starts counting from the date you asked for a trial, not from the date you got charged.

Ok, I asked for a trial on June 26, 2015. My trial is now July 26, 2016. I know that all of the delay has been because of the prosecution. We asked for disclosure and it was incomplete, or the notes were illegible. We are still waiting for disclosure for the July 26 court date.

So it has been 13 months exactly from when I asked for a court date.

Is that long enough? It has been a nightmare having all these tickets hanging over my head

Yes it should be, but you will still need copies of the transcript from any court appearances already.

3 weeks before the July 26th trial date, I would file the 11b.

Update

So the saga continues

My paralegal's boss called me today at 9am. My trail is supposed to be at 1:30 today. He said that last friday my paralegal was in court and he noticed my name was on the docket for that day! The police officer was there, so without phoning me, and without my consent, he settled the case for me and plead guilty to the Handheld Device charge in exchange for all the other charges being dropped. I called the court office today and they listened to the transcript while I was on the phone. My paralegal told me the wrong date! I am not happy with this result for a number of reasons.

The officer who stopped me on the highway and who may have observed me talking on my phone was not in court. The officer who did the actual inspection was in court.

The Handheld device charge seems to me to be the most damaging charge to my driving record, even thought it is from the pre demerit point time.

It had also been 13 months since I asked for a trial. I asked my paralegal to apply for an 11B about a month ago and they didnt do it.

What should I do? Live with the result or ask for an appeal?

any advice?

I'm not an expert on such matters but I think there is a lot for you to do. I suspect you could have the paralegal's licence to practice taken away as he has no authority to plead guilty for you without instruction. Things like having a case reopened have strict time limits so you don't want to sit on this one.

I'd be having a conversation at volume with the paralegal office boss and see what they are prepared to do for you. Certainly your bill to them has disappeared and I'd think there might be some compensation coming the other way.