Newbies, Listen ... overweight court ahead ...

And someone needs to teach the officer how to be a witness - shut up until three seconds after the question is fully asked; don't anticipate/volunteer information; review citations and reports before getting on the stand.

 

I thought I heard the officer say he was a former truck driver.

 

TL;DR Officer didn't present proof that the portable scales were certified when they were used to record the overweight violation so the case was dismissed.

 

In Michigan it’s $0.20 for every pound 10k and over…or just over 10k? Or it’s $0.15 per pound up to 10k. Either way it’s not cheap.

 

That’s the prosecutors job to obtain that information. The state is the plaintiff not the officer. The officer is merely a witness for the state.

The prosecutor is probably fresh out of law school and learning in real life now. To me it sure sounds like a rookie mistake.

 

I knew of a heavy haul company out of Indiana that got out of a massive overweight ticket in Ohio because the state of Ohio could not produce a actual gross weight this was almost 40 years ago .. Readers Digest wrote a story about the Incident

 

I'm not sure what to think here. So the driver got out of a ticket, but we all know at the end of the day he probably was in fact overweight and thus deserved the fine.

So what's the lesson here? Go ahead and break the law and then get out of it on a technicality? Am I missing something?

 

I think the lesson is Justice is served by 2 sides trying their hardest to win their case. The state has a burden to prove the allegation. Until it's proven, it's unproven. If you get a violation there is a chance you can win the case in court. If you pay the fine there is a zero chance you win the case. Make good decisions.