How To Fight Your Speeding Ticket in Illinois

Since speeding tickets were invented, people have always been trying to get out of them. Many people try to fight their speeding ticket in Court and get it thrown out. So how do you go about getting your speeding ticket thrown out? The short answer: "You won't be able to".

However, there are many tips of the trade, and ways to make it better for yourself. Read this post to find out how to make your life easier after you have gotten a speeding ticket. These are the many ways for how you can fight your speeding ticket in Illinois.

First of all, let me give you some background about speeding tickets in general. Speeding is what is called a "strict liability crime." What that means is that your mental state is not important. What you were thinking and whether you meant or intended to speed is irrelevant. All the prosecutor needs to prove is whether you were speeding or not. Everything else is just not important.

When people demanded trials, here are the things I brought up when I was a prosecutor as it related to speeding:

• The officer was on duty
• The officer noticed a car that appeared to be going at a high rate of speed
• The officer used some official tool to determine the person's speed
• Radar
• Lidar
• The officer's own car and speedometer 
• The official tool was in proper working condition
• The posted speed limit in the area
• The person who drove the speeding car is the person who received the ticket
• Any incriminating statements made by the person who received the ticket ("I'm sorry I was speeding" or "I wasn't going 50, I was only going 45!"- even when the speed limit is only 40)

Every single prosecutor will be able to ask these very simple questions, and if it's not the prosecutor's first day on the job, they will ask these questions. Most, if not all of them, can win a speeding ticket trial in their sleep. 

However, there are still many tips of the trade that I have learned throughout the years of things that procedurally you can do:

What Is Court Supervision?

If you are found or plead guilty, depending on the type of crime or offense you committed, the Court could place you on what's called Court Supervision. This is the lowest form of punishment, and this is the best form of "punishment" for a person who committed an offense.

What is Court Supervision is best described as what it's not- a conviction. Court Supervision is *NOT* a conviction. That means if you are ever asked, mainly by your insurance company or on a job application, "Have you ever committed a crime?", the answer is unequivocally "NO".

730 ILCS 5/5-6-3.1 reads like this in part:

(d) The Court shall defer entering any judgment on the charged until the conclusion of the supervision.
(e) At the conclusion of the period of supervision if the court determines that the defendant has successfully complied with all of the conditions of supervision, the court shall discharge the defendant and enter a judgment dismissing the charges.

Many Judges I've worked with sees Court Supervision as a delayed dismissal of a case. I never viewed it that (I will explain why in a bit), but that goes to show you how beneficial Court Supervision is.

There are four main types of punishment: Court Supervision, Conditional Discharge, Probation, and a Conviction. The latter three are considered "convictions" and they will be discussed more in depth in a later post. For right now, we are just concerning ourselves with Court Supervision.