[krljnk]

Friends,

I ask your advice regarding the best way to proceed to fight my two traffic tickets (speeding and seatbelt). I appeared in the designated traffic (summary) court on Oct 2 at 2pm as instructed on both the traffic citations. However, neither the judge appeared to convene the court nor did the state trooper who wrote the tickets. I waited until 2:43 and then left the courtroom in disgust and impatience at having been kept waiting, particularly knowing that, in most courts, I would have been found guilty in absentia had I not appeared at 2pm as instructed. I felt that I waited a more than reasonable amount of time for the judge to show and convene court. On top of this, the (witness for the) prosecution failed to appear.

The next morning I wrote a letter and sent it certified, return receipt requested to the presiding judge for the traffic court that had been scheduled for the prior day, stating in effect that:
1) I showed up at the duly appointed time;
2) I waited for well over 40 minutes for both the judge and the trooper to appear;
3) I left after waiting more than a sufficient amount of time;
4) On my way out of the courthouse, I tried to get one of the security guards to let me "sign out" on a register or roster of courthouse visitors that I (thought I) saw sitting between the incoming metal detectors but they told me they didn't have anything like that; I did not see any security cameras to record my being there;
4) I considered myself to have fulfilled my legal obligation concerning appearance that day and that, if court was later convened and I was found guilty in my absence, the judgment should be null and void for the above reasons and that I consider their failure to appear a dropping of said charges against me.

I received the judge's response letter on Oct 6 stating simply: "Your assertion of appearance on 2 October 2007is no proof of same: therefore your motion for dismissal is denied. However, in a light most favorable to you, I am rescheduling your case until 8 November 2007 at 2:00 P.M. Should you fail to attend you will be tried in your absence."

I find the following things interesting about this Summary Court judge's response:
1) he takes my letter to be a motion for dismissal; I did not consider it to be such and was merely sending the court notice of facts that I would leave for them to rebut if they so chose;
2) he almost appears to challenge me to prove my appearance; I believe my averment of such should stand on its own until disproven;
3) his own tacit admission that I was *not* already found guilty in absentia is proof that he did not convene court at all that day (apparently) because, if he had, surely I would have been found guilty.

For these reasons, I believe this judge is playing games here. He knows he denied me due process by failing to convene court when it was scheduled, regardless of whether the trooper failed to appear, which itself would have been cause for dismissal (which is what I was hoping for).

I would like to know:
1) What is the extent of my obligation to appear in light of the judge's absence to timely convene court? How long must a defendant wait? I have looked and looked for info on the Net and found nothing aside from the Sheriff having the power to adjourn court after three days of a judge failing to appear for court.
2) What happens if the judge fails to appear?
3) Should I go to the great trouble of trying to prove my prior appearance and thus go that direction in trying to beat this?
4) Should I forget the whole thing and ignore the new court date, likely leading to a guilty verdict and a subsequent arrest warrant flag on my DMV record, and then fight it from there (I think this would be the less intelligent route to take)?
5) Should I fight this with "paper" instead, arguing the merits (if any) that I have in this situation?
6) Just go the TicketSlayer route, even though I will be highly inconvenienced a second time by have to drive over 100 miles, 2 hours, in order to show up a second time at the new court date?

Thank you in advance for your thoughts.