Cops & Judges Caught Using Secret Codes On Tickets in BROWARD County

[SaltyinNJ]

[switch626]

It doesn't surprise me one bit. I think this happens in other places too, though they might use notes instead of smileys. I wonder where the LEOs get the idea of using smileys from

[OldGoat]

nice find, thank you

note to self: ALWAYS ask to see the Court's copy of the Citation

writing on the back is nothing new, but why the roos?

what would be interesting would be an audit of these magistrates rulings. Evaluate the relationship between a frowny-face and a conviction or fine amount, or the inverse with a smiley and an acquittal, dismisal or reduced fine

[krypton2]

I don't see anything wrong with putting the happy or sad face on the citation... I also don't see anything wrong with the judge taking that into account with their ruling. What I do see as a problem is if they're using that solely as the reason for their verdict...which it doesn't seem is the case, although I think the defendants and the media is trying to act that way. It seems like these people are thinking that the only reason they're found guilty is because they have the sad face...but the video, of course, didn't mention the facts of the stop and the violation at hand. Like with the woman who brought pictures in - well, okay, but the video didn't indicate what impact the pictures had on the case. It only mentioned that the defendant brought them in to try and prove her case...

If they want to be secretive about things by using faces then that's up to them. Quite frankly, I know some officers would write exactly what occurred, on all copies of the citation. So if you cause problems while on the stop, the officer may write that in the notes on the citation, and you'll see it too. If they want to write it after the stop they can do that too, but our citations here in PA have a "notes" section specifically on the front of the cite so any and all notes can be written down and the violator can see them, too. Or the officer could just bring it up in court and never write it down, but it would take a unique defendant for the officer to remember what happened weeks or months after the stop.

[Jstglockem]

Sorry but I don't agree with you at all. The only way for a cop to get out of traffic duty is to know how to do his job. If he cannot remember a simple traffic ticket the odds of him going anywhere are slim. If you EF up a traffic stop how in the hell can you be an investigator or detective. Early on you realize that you better remember or be a good liar Most cops are good at both.

There is a reason traffic cop’s do what they do and why homicide cops do what they do. They do what they do best. Cops don't become cops for any other reason than to get into the field that they love.

Now you have the judge or the magistrate deciding the bench. One of my best friends is a magistrate in Fairfax County. The county that puts you in jail for speeding. Now the cops and the magistrates are usually close. They are in law enforcement and at the end of the day co workers.

So if the smiley face was on your ticket and you were an ass, I promise you it makes a difference. Let’s say you were nice an polite but the frown is on the ticket. Without the cops saying a word they already have an idea of how you acted because it’s on the ticket and you have no idea.

This is the basic reason why we have Discovery for both sides.
So they ask you- were you polite? Yes, now they think you are lying under oath and rude. The whole time you have no idea of what’s written on the ticket.

As far as cops writing notes on a ticket. I never wrote notes on the back of tickets. I was taught early on that this is not a good idea. These notes have a legal word. They are call Jencks material. The reason why you don't take notes is so that you cannot be crossed examined on what you wrote when you wrote it.

So when I am on the stand I can say anything that comes to mind and it cannot be disputed by what I wrote on the scene because I was smart enough at the time to know if I make a permanent record of this I might come back to bite me in the ass.

Justice is far from being blind.

[category4]

I don't see anything wrong with putting the happy or sad face on the citation... I also don't see anything wrong with the judge taking that into account with their ruling. What I do see as a problem is if they're using that solely as the reason for their verdict...which it doesn't seem is the case, although I think the defendants and the media is trying to act that way. It seems like these people are thinking that the only reason they're found guilty is because they have the sad face...but the video, of course, didn't mention the facts of the stop and the violation at hand. Like with the woman who brought pictures in - well, okay, but the video didn't indicate what impact the pictures had on the case. It only mentioned that the defendant brought them in to try and prove her case...

If they want to be secretive about things by using faces then that's up to them. Quite frankly, I know some officers would write exactly what occurred, on all copies of the citation. So if you cause problems while on the stop, the officer may write that in the notes on the citation, and you'll see it too. If they want to write it after the stop they can do that too, but our citations here in PA have a "notes" section specifically on the front of the cite so any and all notes can be written down and the violator can see them, too. Or the officer could just bring it up in court and never write it down, but it would take a unique defendant for the officer to remember what happened weeks or months after the stop.

What I think they are saying is wrong is the decisions are based in part on evidence not brought up during trial. If the cop wants to make notes and then testify to that effect then that's OK. But to pass a note on the judges copy and the defendant not be able to rebutt the testimony is wrong in any court.

[Jstglockem]

Discovery? This is the hole reason the magistrate did not rule on the case. She did not have a ****ing clue on what to do. It was way over her head.

Had she been a judge she would have been smart enough to throw it out.

We herd what the Chief Judge thought.

[krypton2]

Fair enough, you can have your opinion and I can have mine. I'll back up what I said though..

We have officers around here who write tons of traffic citations each day, but who aren't traffic officers. Aside from the major cities' police departments (which for the most part, we lack) no one has dedicated traffic units...some officers may love doing investigations, some may love doing traffic, some may love interacting with the community but in the end 95 percent of the officers in PA end up doing all of the above on a daily basis. I would guess, and I'm probably pretty correct in saying over 80 percent of the police departments here in PA have less than 20 officers...actually, it's probably more like less than 15.

I know some officers around here write 10-15 citations per day. If you figure they work 5, 8-hour shifts per week, that's 50-75 citations a week, and 200-300 per month. Preliminary hearings for citations here are normally between a month to a month and a half after the person calls the court, but they can be further in the future depending on how busy the court is. Most people call like 10 days after the citation is issued, so we're talking a minimum of 40 days (or 5-6 weeks) after the citation was issued before the court date is...and the officer may have written over 250 citations during that period of time.

Even as a traffic officer there's no way I could personally remember 250 separate citations and/or traffic stops without writing notes. Does everyone contest their citation? Well, no...but here in PA I can firmly say that a minimum of 60 percent of drivers contest their citations. There's a reason why, but that's for a different thread and a different time. 60 percent of 250 is 150...and that's a lot of separate citations to remember: each and every part of the stop, how the person acted, what they said, etc.

That's not a normal number, I'm aware...but that IS an example of your above-average PA officer who enjoys running traffic when he's not taking calls. It's definitely a possible situation though... I am very, very sure that it is. I can name upwards of 50 police departments that have multiple officers on duty at a time but get 2 or 3 calls per 8-hour shift...that provides a lot of time to run traffic. That's just my part of the state, too.

We don't write on the back of citations here in PA, I mean I guess you could...but the state actually has a (very large, in comparison to the rest of the citation) box on the front bottom of every traffic citation for notes. You aren't required to write on there of course but it's strongly suggested.

Like I said in my first post, if the person's a jerk and the officer doesn't write it on the citation, I will bet that it will be brought up during testimony. What's the difference between writing it on the citation and saying it in your testimony? Well, if you write it on the citation then the judge knows ahead of time, but if you say it during testimony (ultimately) the judge knows ahead of time as well, as the officer's testimony is generally prior to the defendant's comments during the hearing. At least, it always has been from traffic court cases I've seen. The negative about mentioning it during testimony is that the defendant can start shouting out, whereas writing it on the citation will make things a little bit more calm in traffic court. And yes, this happens frequently.

Whether you write it on the citation or say it during testimony in court, both have to be the truth and you can't commit perjury. If the officer does (at either time) then that's his problem... if s/he is going to lie they have bigger issues than whether they decide to lie on the citation or in court, in front of the judge. After all, it's lying under oath either way. The citations here in PA have a line under (or maybe it's above, I don't recall) where the officer signs saying that everything on the citation must be the full truth as to what occurred, under the penalty of perjury. Whether you write it on the citation or bring it up during the testimony, both can be questioned and you could be cross-examined. So long as you keep your cool when writing notes on the citation, and you only write exactly what the person said during the stop, I see no difference in writing it on the citation vs. mentioning it during your testimony.

We don't really have a formal discovery process here in PA...you can request documents from the officer or the court but there's really no formal way to do so. I understand that the smiley face and sad face sort of thing is misleading and the defendant won't have any idea what it means. I think it's much, much better to just write in regular english what happened - like I said, I know officers that won't think twice in writing exactly what a person said or did (negatively) during a traffic stop, right on all copies of the citation. If the court wants the officers to be secretive about it then it's up to that court. If they want to do otherwise then they need to inform the officers of such.

Traffic court is very casual here in PA...it's nothing like what is shown in the video, at least in my neck of the woods, and we don't have a specific traffic court here like there is in other states. Some of the major cities have a dedicated traffic court but it's not the norm and that's only for MAYBE half a dozen cities - not a lot. Maybe that's why I have a different view of court and what happens there, I dunno.

If one can remember all of what happened during each traffic stop that they issued a citation for then more power to them. If they don't have to take notes, sweet. I wish I could say the same thing...but I can't. I can't even remember what I did last week, much less talking with dozens or hundreds of people.

[Jstglockem]

No need to back up what you are saying. I respect everything you said. I totally understand what you are saying about small towns. I lived in a small town of 1500 people in MN I was the only Costa Rican for thousands of miles! My wife is from Mars, PA so I understand what you are saying about the cops in those areas.

I have had the honor of meeting a few State Troopers now and then when I drive to PA every other month.

When a county cop is doing sh1tyy things they call the SP to investigate. If you get stopped for doing something wrong then this is who you want to get stopped by.

They have a level of integrity that is truly one of the most honorable. I have never met in my 20 plus years in LE a SP that was out of line and I have met a bunch over the years.

There is a big reason that cops have the “Thin Blue Line” it’s very real. You really have to mess up for a cop to cross that line. Trust me we all have secrets. I have thought about writing a book on the secrets I know about DC cops. I am a good person, but I am know angel either.

Discovery applies to everyone and makes it an even playing field for both parties. No matter if you live in Florida or PA. If you are dirt poor or you don't know the legal system this is there to protect you from the state period.

You can go out and kill a hundred cats or a hundred people. If the State covers up Discovery you are going to be a free man and a rich one if you have spent years in jail for a cover up.

Do you really think a cop can guess actually how fast you are going by eyesight and then the number in his head is close to that of a lidar gun every single time, really?

Then go to court and say each time they new the correct number. They can’t say they are not sure because then it would get dismissed every single time.

I am trying to say in this post is exactly what you said in your last post. If your small town is taking side steps because they are small town then more than likely you are getting screwed.

I am guessing they are not because they would end up in the paper and the following day one of us would blog about the crap on this forum.

The story was on Florida. They make more money than god on tickets. They are scamming the public on this bull sh1t. Let's say you are a driver for UPS and you get a ticket. The cop draws a frown and now you just lost your perfect driving record along with your job because of this.

The difference is that this time they were caught. This would still be going on if they had not been caught. Tiger Woods did not have a problem sticking his **** in hot b1tches tell he was caught.

I have a really big problem with cops, judges and lawyers that have the “I am God” and they let that crap go their head. (look at any of my past post on this subject

[krypton2]

Very well. Mars, eh? That's not very far away...

The Troopers are good, indeed. The agency as a whole...well, they are professional, but they have a ton of power overall. Anything and everything related to policing, legislatively, ends up going through PSP before it goes any further. That's why bills for radar/lidar usage never pass, bills to allow sheriff's deputies to actually be police like they should be never pass, bills to grant counties or large police departments to take over policing for the smaller communities around them never pass...all of these bills, which have come up numerous times in legislature, ultimately give things to police departments that PSP doesn't want them to have. That's one downfall of PA government in my opinion, but enough on that...

I'm entirely serious when I said that PA has no discovery process when it comes to traffic citations. For criminal cases we do have a discovery process, but it is actually written in our court process that summary offenses (which traffic offenses fall under) are not subject to the discovery process. One can request documents from the court or the police department through right to know laws, but there's no discovery process that requires the court or the police to hand those documents over.

No harm, no foul...this is actually a good conversation seeing both sides of the issue. This entire thing depends on integrity... if every officer is truthful then there really isn't anything wrong with this... in my eyes, if you're a jerk to the officer while on a traffic stop then I feel the court needs to know that. But I can see, and personally know, how that can go sideways really quickly. The problem I have is that people think police officers are punching bags and can solve all of the world's problems, when neither is true. You were a cop, so I think you understand that sort of thing.