See the Blue Light? Don't Put Up a Fight

You see the blue light. You hear the siren. You pull over. Then what?

Be  courteous and cooperative and don't argue, advises Sherman Ellison, who has spent the last decade of his 40-year legal career fighting traffic citations. In that time, he's gotten dismissals nine out of ten times.

You could get a warning, but that rarely happens. Even when you get a ticket, being calm can help you beat the charge if you decide to contest it.

"After you leave the scene, the traffic officer will write notes on his copy of the ticket," Ellison told Chatsworth Patch. If you did nothing unusual, they won't have anything to write and it will be harder for them to remember the incident if called to the witness stand.

Ellison, whose main office is in Chatsworth at 21601 Devonshire St., has taken the radar and laser course required to train traffic cops.  He served as a judge pro tem in traffic court. When it comes to traffic citations, he knows every nook, cranny and loophole.

If you get ticketed, here's what Ellison suggests:

• If you are eligible to get your ticket dismissed by attending traffic school, do that. "There might be a fine of a few hundred dollars and the traffic school fees but it may be less time-consuming than fighting the ticket in court and you have a guaranteed dismissal," he said.
• If you are not eligible for traffic school, give Ellison or other attorney a call. The call is free and he or a member of his staff will explain your options. If you hire Ellison, his fees typically range from $500 to $2,500. However, there is a 90 percent chance he will make the ticket go away.

"There are many factors that would lead people to fight the citation," he said. They may be a professional driver or be behind the wheel of a company car. They may have been at fault in a bad accident or have a bad record from previous tickets.

The secret of Ellison's success? "We just approach it hypertechnically. There's no magic."

He assumes that the court will always believe the testimony of the police officer. "So we fight the case based on what we assume the officer's testimony will be. If the cop says you were speeding, you'll lose the factual battle all the time."

Instead, Ellison gets subpoenas for the records, files motions and a trial brief. If the police don't comply with the subpoena, if the officer fails to appear in court, if the judge agrees to exclude crucial evidence or agrees with a motion to dismiss, bingo, Ellison chalks up another victory.

Ellison is more than an advocate, though. He's a thinking man and he spent a lot of time considering the fairness  of using the system, at times, to win dismissals for people who violated the law.

He said he might feel differently about his role if the system was designed for public safety only. In that case, people would get warnings if they violated the law but didn't really endanger themselves or others like, for example, if their offense was coming to a rolling stop at a stop sign.

Instead, he said, the system is also designed to bring in revenue, even when there is no issue of public safety. "I ride my white horse into the courtroom when it is just a hypertechnical ticket issued when someone rolls to a California stop or goes 47 in a 35 zone and there are no safety issues. That is just a chicken salad ticket. That deserves a warning."

Personally, he adds, "I don't get tickets myself because I know they are a pain in the neck to fight. I don't want to go to traffic school. So I follow the law."

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