Nationwide Insurance Company and Judge Steve Benton
    Jury Duty and Judges Kevin Henderson and Robert "Skip" Morse
    Airport Shenanigans
    Speeding ticket and Judges Don Higgenbothem and Kevin Henderson

       Some good advice when accused in Williamson County Texas

Suppose that you have a traffic speeding ticket, say 10 mph over the limit. Say 30 mph in the cops says a 20 mph zone. Suppose you think it is unfair, because there wasn't a speed sign posted, so how were you supposed to know it was lower than the state law that says 30 when it isn't posted. Or that the speed limit is different on each side of the street (30 on one side, 45 on the other, on Bootys Road, for just one example, in Georgetown), so you thought it was the same. Suppose the cop testifies and the prosecutor summarizes to the jury that you should have read the sign pointed for opposite direction traffic (then that different limit on different sides would make a difference). Suppose that you know that you were not speeding over the supposed limit anyway (this is the usual situation). Should you fight it? What would happen, and what would it cost you?

But, suppose more. Suppose that the officer lied, and filed a false police report. We are not talking a mistake here, maybe because it was some time between the time of the traffic stop and when the officer wrote the report. We are talking the officer had the facts and was intentionally filing a false accusation. He lied, but also the explorer scout witness that was riding in his squad will back you up in court testimony that the cop lied and filed a false police report, and the prosecutor is dumb enough to call him as a witness in court (so you don't have to worry about calling a minor without parental permission). Doesn't that anger you? Is that enough to make you want to go to court?

Suppose you had a cockpit voice recorder going during the traffic stop, so you could prove beyond doubt that the cop lied and filed a false police report. The jury can listen to exactly what happened. The jury can hear and see the fabrication of "evidence" by the cop. Further, the jury can watch the cop stick to his story in court, so now they would know perjury on the part of the cop. Now should you go to court, to push the point?

Suppose the cop is a habitual law breaker. We are not talking big stuff here, just speeding in the park - say above twice the posted limit, right next to the play-scape monkey bars thing. We are not talking about organized crime here, just driving down the bike path, where there is a no motorized vehicles sign, and you have a picture of the kids running in fear. Even though that was just when you happen to have been there to watch for yourself, a random event, the prosecutor will tell the jury that you were stalking the police officer. Ever wonder if people have gone to jail because this cop lied? Ever wonder why people are afraid to come forward when they see the police doing wrong? Are you willing to take the chance to go to court? Is this getting to be important yet?

But wait, you also get... Suppose you could also prove that you were not speeding (this is the unusual situation). Suppose this was a data dump from your automobile engine controller computer, into your PC, of your speedometer trace for the last half hour (you can get the software from a company in California). Suppose this was a GPS velocity plot from your laptop running Delorme Street Atlas USA, that that company made for you from the GPS record you saved. No, wait, let's do this up right, you are going to take on a cop, suppose it was the most accurate velocity measurement system known to mankind. Suppose you had a data logger in operation at the time and that it was plotting an output. You were not speeding above the supposed unposted limit, no bullshit. Now should you go to court?

But, if you order now, we'll send along, totally free... Suppose that you did a little investigation, and found official city documentation that the officer never had any training on the radar he used. But wait, it gets worse... Suppose you got the official city documentation, and it proves that the radar was broken. Oh, but this one really stinks... Suppose you got the officer to testify in court that the radar had interference known to the officer from the air conditioner and heater in the squad car. This is really bad... He lets you see the tuning forks, they are all bent up, and you get the tuning fork official records from the city, so you see where the radar company did not certify them. Now should you go to court?

You were accused by a broken radar, and you can prove it, the radar calibration thingys are broken, and you can prove it, the cop never got any training on moving radar, only stationary radar, and used moving radar against you, and he was moving, and he testified that he doesn't know how to use it, and you have proof that you were not speeding above the supposed limit. You should go to court with this?

Now you start doing research on police Doppler radar. You start with the users manual for the police radar that he used against you. Here is the specifications section, where it explains how it must be used. It says that you must be moving at least 15 mph, and he must be moving at least 15 mph, or it gives wrong readings. Remember, your speed, which you can prove by the printed chart from most accurate speed measuring equipment known to man, was under 15 mph. And the cop will testify that he has no idea how fast he was going, but that it was well under the supposed 20 mph limit. Enough yet?

An even better place to do research is http://members.aol.com/copradar Read that, and learn about all of the foibles of police radar technology, and start to wonder why it is being used at all. Yes, the technology can be valid, but, more often, it is not, according to the federal government. It can so easily be unintentionally misused, and it can be so easily intentionally misused to inflict harm by the police. There are many gotchas in this technology, so a police officer really needs to be trained to avoid all these problems, or so says almost every other state law. But not Texas law. Getting the picture?

You were approaching his squad, which was moving toward you. The radar measures the combined speeds, yours plus his. Because it measures the speed of your car relative to his antenna. So, to get your speed over the ground, the direct reading of combined speed must have subtracted from it his squad car speed over the ground. Suppose the cop will testify that he was not even monitoring the second Doppler tone (for the speed of the squad), because he set the squelch. How can the officer possibly have any confidence that the radar calculation was right, because there is no way for him to know if the subtracted number was a pure Doppler tone? This is a calculated, not a measured, speeding ticket, and the second source of data, according to the officer's testimony, was not monitored for interference. And the manual says that each speed must be 15 mph or more, or it won't work right anyway. And you can prove that you were not going the minimum 15 mph.

The law says you must be proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Notice the irrepressible reasonable doubt! You want to go to court, yet?

But there is more. This is the old obsolete radar equipment. Suppose this one is on 24 GHz, where all the supermarket door openers he was pointed directly at, operate. So also the weather radar. How about all those warnings about improper operation near an airport, now that we have all that traffic from the Austin closed airport, and the closed Austin reliever airport, Austin Executive? How about all those vehicle systems on the same frequency, like busses and automobiles with their side and back-up warning systems, that all interfere and produce wrong readings on this band of police radar. The sources of interference on this old radar band is so bad that a new police radar band got created by the FCC for police radar alone, and professional police no longer use this radar frequency because of the level and sources of interference. But, that makes it cheap to obtain, doesn't it? You ready to take them on yet?

You have a legitimate gripe about the technology was wrong, the box broken, the cop not know how to work it, the cop be a liar, you be not speeding for absolute sure. Just mounds of direct evidence, and testimony to back it up, all in your favor.

Now you find official federal government confirmation about what you suspect - statistics on how bad police radar really is for getting it wrong. You have the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration study that shows that 86% of police radar have patrol speed shadowing problems, 86% had internal 100 watt mobile radio problems, 86% had internal CB transmissions problems, 71% had panning error problems, 71% had mechanical interference problems, 71% had internal 2 watt hand-held radio problems, 57% had internal AC and heater fan problems, 43% suffered from speed bumping or batching problems, 43% external police radio 20-30 ft away induced problems, 29% picked up ignition and alternator problems, 14% external CB transmission problems, and, look at this, 57% of the tuning forks (calibration used by the officer to convince a jury) were mis-labeled or missing calibration. This is unbelievable (but entirely true)! The cop will testify in court that he has only had a four hour class in police radar, and that class was not on the equipment he used (gun vs moving). The cop will testify in court that he had 'browsed' the manual, but not read it. How can you possibly effectively train a police officer to detect and, therefore, discount (not issue the ticket) when each and every of these problems cannot be taught in one four hour class without any practical evaluation on differently operating equipment? How could any jury, with half a brain, accept this kind of evidence against you?

You do more research, and you discover that some states, like Michigan, have rigid requirements on how the police radar equipment is operated. The state's radar expert witness will testify that tuning forks are not allowed in Michigan because they don't even test the receiver/transmitter/antenna. He will testify that Michigan requires that the site be radar mapped, before radar use to gather evidence, in order to preclude interference. He will testify that the state of Michigan requires that the radar first be used against another squad of known speed on that road, to preclude receiver/transmitter/antenna problems that a tuning fork would not catch, before it can be used against you. He will testify that a radar that is off frequency, by the amount that the cop's radar calibration certificate shows, should have a tuning fork at a significantly different frequency in order to show the tuning fork test results that the cop claims he had. He will testify that the tuning forks are badly bent up. The cop will testify that the Georgetown police don't do radar mapping or moving target calibration, ever. This is where it really gets bad... You get the testimony of the state's expert witness to confirm that, running another squad down the road as a known speed target, and radar mapping the road against interference, is the only way to know for sure that the technology is actually working correctly. And the prosecutor is going to be dumb enough to provide all of this for you. You ready for court yet?

Then you find out that the police department policy, because they haven't, any of them, had any training (and just don't know any better) here in Georgetown, is to not do any of that. You can't even find any police officer that can explain what all of that is. In Michigan, you are going to be relatively safe from a false ticket, because they have requirements to preclude most common problems, but in Georgetown, there nothing in the way of requirements or procedure or calibration or maintenance or training.

Now you take your discovery to the state. You find out that, in Texas, there is no law requiring any of that, so there is no training, no calibration, no certification, and no maintenance (both equipment and officer allowed to be broken) by law. There are no laws covering any form of anything, for police radar, in Texas. Here is the really bad part, you got that in writing from the state attorney general. The radar does not even need to be checked for being on frequency (explaining why it isn't), the tuning forks can be bent and damaged (explaining why they are), and the officer does not even have to sit through that 4 hour sales pitch from the salesman done with somebody else's model (that he doesn't use) to get the little card he carries professing him as a professional police radar operator (highly valued by the prosecutor in front of the jury, but as valuable as one right out of a box of breakfast cereal). All of this is irrelevant in Texas!

You should challenge all of this, right? You got right on your side! You got proof to a legal standard of beyond all doubt! How could you possibly lose (why I am writing this)?

But there is another aspect to this case. What about where was that sign? That speed sign, that wasn't there, is important, because, maybe, isn't this fraud? Does this go beyond idiocy into setting up the public to bring in money?

It got knocked down in an auto accident, and it was the only one on that road pointing at you! Maybe not fraud, but not fair either! Even if you were going 30 mph as accused, and you weren't and can prove it, the fact that there was no sign ought to result in ticket dismissal because the state law then says the limit would be 30 mph. You were accused of doing 30 mph on a road with no posted speed sign! Here is a good part, you take photographs every 50 feet of the whole road, they show no speed signs, and you get that introduced in court (published to the jury). Here is a better part, you get the cop to admit that there may not have been any speed sign posted. You go find out who maintains the one speed sign that should have been there, but don't get the records to show it wasn't there!

They want to know why you want it! You told them the reason for wanting government records. The machine swings into coordinated action. We can't give government records to you if you are going to use the information against the government! You file a Freedom Of Information Act request. City Attorney informs you that the FOIA act does not apply to you if you are accused of a crime. If accused of a crime, you do not have the legal grounds to have possession of the proof that would free you! Welcome to Texas, and welcome to Williamson County! You complain and kick up a ruckus. That state attorney general steps in to back the city, and it is, get this, an unpublished finding!

But, the city official in charge of those records will testify in court that the police department came and got them, so he is not able to provide them. And that this has never happened in all of his decades of experience on that job. But, also, that he was sure that the police must have given them all back just before court, and there is only the one record of only one sign ever having been broken in the park in Georgetown, at it wasn't that sign. You sick to your stomach yet? Shouldn't a jury be?

Now you start in Municipal Court. Surprise, you have to request a subpoena for the records that would provide all of the city proof that would free you. There will be a pretrial scheduled. You need to list everything you need, and the judge will go over it, all at once, so that the prosecutor gets to hear your whole case well before court, so he can prepare for it. You have done all the investigation that you can, even hit the bureaucratic wall (they knew you were coming), but you still have assembled a solid case. You have no other option than to tip the prosecutor to the whole thing. This is unfair - you don't get to hear his case, item of evidence by item of evidence, but he is allowed to hear yours, so he can prepare for your attack in court. You can not for his. This a fair trial?

Comes the day of pretrial. What the municipal judge doesn't, of your requests, throw them out, summarily, by himself, the prosecutor will object to them. Remember, this is not about fairness, this is about adversarial. If you be in Georgetown, maybe you don't even get to speak during this procedure! You get, maybe, 20% of what you needed for your defense, if you are extremely lucky. Remember, this is all real actual physical direct evidence of your innocence. This be fair, right?

On to the day of Municipal Court trial... So, off you go serving your papers on the local bureaucrats for their appearances to testify to what you need, at least to the 20% you are allowed by the judge and the prosecutor. See, you can't introduce evidence. All that is allowed in court is people saying things. You call them, you question them, you hand them evidence and ask them about it, to make them say what you need. Except, remember, the judge has disallowed 80% of what you had to have, so you can't use that. And, what if they lie? Then you confront them with the evidence of their deceit. see if you can remember the last time you ever heard about anybody in any government job being penalized for perjury. This is fair, right?

This is a machine. The machine's parts talk to eachother, the police and the municipal prosecutor and the municipal court judge all employed by the same city manager, and they and all the supporting city departments all be after you! Your innocence is a threat to the machine.

Suppose you found an honest police officer. He thinks this is really rotten, the way that justice is being totally set aside, because it is "us against you". Suppose he helps you, one cop to another cop (suppose you are retired police officer from another state). Right up to where he gets transferred to kiddy cop visiting the grade schools and giving drug lectures. But not before he tells you, and you taped him telling you, that the judge ordered the police to stop investigating before they find you innocent! This is fair, right?

They be needing get you goodly. Teach you a lesson. The judge in municipal court gives the prosecutor 9 hours to put on his case. Then, since the judge needs to get this done in one day is enough, and it is getting really late, he allows defense 23 minutes to put on your case, so the jury can go out and get this over with! That's fair, right?

You are going to lose in municipal court. There doesn't need to be a lot of work put into this, just plan on lose there and appeal for a trial de-novo (start all over again from the beginning) in county court. The municipal court judge is going to behave so totally outrageously, and you can't possibly win anything in front of him, so don't risk big fines for contempt of kangaroo. That is why the law does not recognize the validity of a municipal court conviction, and you can start all over, with the presumption of innocence, in county court.

Except you need to post a bond to do that. Twice what the municipal court fined you (which will be the maximum allowed by law of $200). Here is the rub - the municipal court doesn't have a procedure for appeal to county court, and if they had, then they wouldn't tell you. And they can have you arrested if you try to post the bond! That's fair, right? Suppose you get that on tape, just in case you need it later? Suppose that the honest cop just happened to be there, and saw that travesty. You know, where the police carried you to the door and threw you through it! You should be able to use that, too, in county court, right?

We start at county court with the same deal - pretrials. Expect five of them, here, spread over more than a year. Yes, you knew that the law only allows the prosecutor just one. This is the prosecutor learning every detail of the defense case, because, he knows about your innocence already. This is the prosecutor getting multiple bites at the defense apple, reducing it, possibly failing here and there, and taking another shot at the failures until he can get what he wants past the judge. You already knew this would happen, you just thought only once. This is not a wild municipal court judge running amuck, this is systematized, without bounds. This is the way things are done in Williamson County. This is the procedure that guarantees your right to a fair trail at a real trial.

You don't get much of a defense case, here either, by the time trial is scheduled for real. But wait, there will be four to five false schedulings that only you don't know will be a "no go". You have to prepare, and be ready, and have all of your witnesses subpoenaed, which costs you money each time, but it isn't going to "go", and you will not know until the day and time, and you will be the only one that didn't know. This procedure, to guarantee your right to a fair trial, is put there to run up your court costs, and to demoralize you. That is fair, right? It's all about the state winning, at all costs. This is 'justice'?

Comes the day of the real trial, and only you did not know that. A way you could have tipped yourself off (now you learn) is to check the file for prosecution subpoenas (if they weren't there the day before, you are not going to 'go'). By now, hopefully, you assumed that they are not playing it for real, again. OK, here is where things are going to get really nasty. Now you get served with the prosecution's motion in limine.

You only have about 5% of your case left, that the judge will allow you to present. It is centered about there was no sign, so thirty, the alleged, was legal, and the plot of your under 15 mph speed (OK, there was that one burst up to 19 mph, when the cop was chasing you and you thought you needed to pull out of his way). You will not be allowed any of what little of your evidence the judge had previously allowed to get through all of those five pretrials. Not only that, but the prosecutor will send the cop out to take pictures of speed signs (it is now over two years later) on roads that you did not travel in the park and surrounding areas. You object, on relevance. It is over two years later, how can you prove that they were there then? These are not even the road in question! The judge will allow that evidence! You are now down to no case will you be allowed to present to the jury, and no witness will you be allowed to call (you can call them, you are just not allowed to ask them any questions). Your only chance is attempting to show the reasonable doubt of your guilt, through the only mechanism yet not taken away from you - cross examination of the prosecution's witnesses against you. At least the prosecutor can object, and the judge can cut you off. This is fair, right?

The prosecutor has removed your entire defense case, before you ever got to the jury. That the radar is broken, the condition of the tuning forks, the lack of training, the interference from the air conditioner and heater, the pictures of no speed sign anywhere on the road traveled, you get from cross on the officer, and the stuff from the state's expert radar witness on cross from him, you get. That is all you get.

The prosecutor's expert witness brought with him a special radar, not the one from the officer's squad, so you get treated to a "fixed" demonstration. You object about relevance again - not the radar in question, but the judge finds against you on that, too. The hokum radar is 'tuned' so the defective forks work. The hokum radar has a short cord, so the defense cannot introduce what happens when the signal from the radar antenna/transmitter/receiver unit bounces off the windshield and hits the computer unit. That is because the radar in the squad has interference from the squad, which causes wrong readings, just like the manual says, but the prosecutor and his expert witness and the judge don’t want the jury to actually see that happening.

See the total irrelevance of the whole state's 'expert' witness? But that isn't enough to make sure that the state gets a 'fair' shot at you...

The law says you have the right to a trial by your peers. The prosecutor and the judge, before trial started, make sure that this cannot happen. It's called a jury sort, another maneuver before the trial starts.

You are entitled to six jurors for a class C misdemeanor. You can object to three, the prosecutor can object to three, three can be thrown out for cause. No more than fifteen people need to be called for jury duty. The state has called one hundred. The prosecutor will sort the jurors into an order for two trials, then separate into two groups, then resort the order for each trial there. The jurors must fill out a prospective juror questionnaire. What do you do for a living, what do you make, have you ever been charged with what, ... All this is pointed at identifying how intelligent are you, and will you be likely to follow orders without question.

Each juror has been given a number, and they are all seated in jury number sequence. You notice 48, 17, 39, 42... You get the idea. Strange counting sequence, isn't it?

The prosecutor is allowed to ask the prospective jurors questions, so he can dismiss his three. You then do the same. Anybody here know the defendant? Of the first twelve that will remain, those are gone. Now you get your turn. How many people here have ever had a traffic ticket? Nobody of the remaining first twelve, amazing how many beyond the first twelve! That's, certainly, fair, right? Your jury will not have had the experience you went through. How many believe that the police never make a mistake? Amazing isn't it, all of the first twelve and almost none of everybody else! Notice how many of the first twelve are retired or active government and police of some sort. Somewhat high proportion of the general society, what? You should have been suspicious when the prosecutor asked the judge for a jury sort, and was told by the judge that he has already had two jury sorts.

Of course, you don't get to see the jury questionnaires, until you are looking at the jury, and are not even given enough time to read. But the prosecutor's office has had them long enough for the two lawyers and the trial psychology assistants to go over them in detail (and accomplish those two sorts). You get the idea. The prosecutor has removed your case, and also insured that you do not get a jury of your peers. This is procedure in Williamson County, to insure that the accused is allowed a fair trial.

Now we get to the persecutor's conduct of his case. There is this "rule" that says that all the witnesses against you cannot sit in the court room to listen to what has happened in previous testimony. This would allow them to adjust intended rehearsed testimony, where necessary, to make it contiguous with the previous trail of lies. So, the persecutor declares his expert witness. See, an expert gets to sit through all previous testimony, before he testifies to anything. Since he is an expert, the judge will allow him to hear everything, so that he is not "sticking out", so to speak. This is fair, right? It's his job to cover the bases you uncovered in your cross of the state's other witnesses.

And, an expert is not limited to what he knows, but can testify to opinions (without distinguishing that from the truth). Legally, an expert is a person with an opinion! He doesn't even have to have any education or experience or training in the subject of his opinion! Let's take what happened here as an example: The persecutor's expert witness on the operation of police radar. This guy got an Electrical Engineering degree, after more time than a university normally allows, has worked in voice frequency analog circuit design, has never worked or been educated in radar or radio frequency, according to him. But he is going to give his opinion that "radar never makes a mistake, and when it does it is always in the favor of the accused (reads low)". You have a problem connecting those two fragments of thought? Now you see the level of "science" that goes on in a Williamson County courtroom. You have a problem with an audio analog giving his opinion of microwave RF. The judge doesn't, and the persecutor doesn't! That's fair, right?

Not yet, it isn't fair. Not until the judge will order the jury to accept this persons opinion as fact, just in case one of them caught that it was just an opinion, just in case one of them caught that he really has no education or experience. Now you see why sorting for 'takes orders without question' is important to the persecution and to the court.

The second reason for the expert witness is to allow him to ridicule the defendant during cross examination. The defense is prohibited from asking embarrassing questions of the witness, by the persecutor objecting, or the judge precluding, if the persecutor fell asleep and failed to object.

How about add insult to injury? The jury is shuttled out of the courtroom about every third question from the defense. An adroit jury would notice that the defense is not being allowed any discovery or probative value. Now you see why sorting for 'intelligence' is important to the persecution and to the court. The persecutor will try to get all the non-college, low income, highschool dropout, police officer he can sort for, and the judge will allow that. If the persecutor didn't do that, and the accused had a jury of his peers (somebody that could understand at least some of the research the accused has accomplished), that wouldn't be a fair trial, in Williamson County!

So, it is time for the jury to retire to the jury room. Didn't you ever get curious as to where they go? Through that door. Let's go open that door and just gape in there. That is where the 700 pound baboon with a badge explains to you that you don't go in there. Well, I guess that seems fair. So you shouldn't be concerned that, during the hour of jury deliberation, the persecutor is going in and coming out that door, three times, or that the judge disappeared so he isn't there to prevent that. You have to understand the system that guarantees you a fair trial. How could you possibly have a fair trial, unless the state's facilitator were there to help the jury, right?

Oh, I almost forgot. The jury decides the fine should be the maximum allowed by law, which is $200. Remember, you paid the $400 at the municipal court, so the judge gives you 30 days to pay the remaining $123 in order to stay out of jail. That was because you were always respectful in court of the kangaroo. Hopper does have the right to throw you into jail, right there, until you come up with the money (just in case you didn't know that). Debtor's prison. That's fair, right?

Some conclusions on how the court system operates.