Does the officer who pulled you over have to show up i court?
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Does the officer who pulled you over have to show up i court?
Last year I had gotten a speeding ticket and took it to court. When I arrived to court I noticed the officer did not show up but there was a another state trooper in the room. From doing research online I kept seeing that if the officer who pulled you over didn’t show up then your ticket is dismissed. So why wasn’t my ticket not dismissed? I still had to pay half of it.
Asked on August 8, 2019 under General Practice, Massachusetts
Answers:
SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney
Answered 5 years ago | Contributor
While each court has a certain amount of discretion to do things its own way, in my experience, if the officer is not there the first day--which is not uncommon; he may be be on duty; he may be out sick or on vacation--and you refuse to plead guilty, they will reschedule or adjourn the case, give you a new court date, and tell the officer to show up the second time. They do this because it would be inefficient to make every involved officer (i.e. each one who issued a ticket) sit around on the off chance a motorist wants a trial...but they also don't want to regularly dismiss everytime a motorist shows up and the officer is not there day 1.
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