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  1. #1
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    If ticketed in California, BEFORE signing the ticket, note this

    Remember, signing a ticket means that you promise to appear at the place (usually a courthouse) noted on the ticket. But you may have the right to request (okay, demand) that the venue be changed from the usual one to the county seat, as indicated in CVC 40502:

    http://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/det.../c2/art1/40502
    V C Section 40502 Place to Appear

    40502. The place specified in the notice to appear shall be any of the following:

    (a) Before a magistrate within the county in which the offense charged is alleged to have been committed and who has jurisdiction of the offense and is nearest or most accessible with reference to the place where the arrest is made.

    (b) Upon demand of the person arrested, before a judge or other magistrate having jurisdiction of the offense at the county seat of the county in which the offense is alleged to have been committed. This subdivision applies only if the person arrested resides, or the person's principal place of employment is located, closer to the county seat than to the magistrate nearest or most accessible to the place where the arrest is made.
    Basically, if you live or work closer to the county seat than the proposed trial location on your ticket, you can demand that the trial be held at the county seat, but you must do this before signing the ticket. If you sign the ticket promising to appear at the normal location, it's too late.

    NOTE: If the officer fails to grant your request for the county seat (which is illegal by the way, as this is your right), you should write something like "under protest 40502(b)" or "officer refused county seat" near the "place to appear" on the ticket. The officer will get a carbon copy of everything you written on the ticket, so this will go into the official records, and you can later get the case dismissed on the grounds that your rights under CVC40502(b) have been violated. Do not accept any verbal confirmation that your request for the county seat has been granted, if it has not been changed on the official ticket copy; the officer would be lying, and if you sign the ticket without writing any protest on it, it's your word against the officer's as to whether you really requested it when you should have. While it is possible to ask for a change of venue at arraignment, you'd likely have to go to the farther location to be arraigned, then ask for a transfer of venue, which is a big pain.

    The way this works is this: say you live in Berkeley, and you're ticketed in Fremont. The CHP officer would likely want you to show up at the courthouse in Fremont, but the county seat of Alameda County is Oakland, which is closer to Berkeley than Fremont. You can demand that the trial be held in Oakland, 30 minutes north of Fremont (without traffic).

    Even better: you're ticketed around Tahoe/Truckee, in Nevada County. Well, the county seat of Nevada County is Nevada City, 52 miles and an hour's drive west of Truckee. If you live in most urban parts of California, Nevada City is also closer to your home/work than is Truckee.

    Even better than that: you're ticketed in Blythe, CA, in Riverside County. The county seat of Riverside County is Riverside, CA. Again, if you live in most urban parts of CA, chances are, you're closer to Riverside than to Blythe. Riverside is 173 miles and 2.5 hours (each way) from Blythe.

    By moving the trial to a place inconvenient for the officer, you decrease the chances that the officer will show up in court, and increase your chances of winning the case.

    I have not heard whether someone who lives in, say, Chicago, could successfully demand a transfer from, say, Truckee, to Nevada City, on the grounds that Nevada City is "closer" to Chicago because most flights from Chicago to California go into SFO, and SFO is closer to Nevada City than Truckee, but since the word "closer" is up for interpretation, it should be up to the judge to decide.

    See also:
    http://libertyfight.com/county_seat.html

    Last edited by awj223; 02-17-2015 at 11:05 PM. Reason: Update the link to CVC40502. CA DMV moved it.

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  3. #2
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    I used to have a card in my wallet with this CVC printed out when in Calif. pissed off a CHP in Riverside County doing this -- the court he ended up giving me didn't even exist any more which complicated things :X

  4. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by awj223 View Post

    Even better than that: you're ticketed in Blythe, CA, in Riverside County. The county seat of Riverside County is Riverside, CA. Again, if you live in most urban parts of CA, chances are, you're closer to Riverside than to Blythe. Riverside is 173 miles and 2.5 hours (each way) from Blythe.
    Almost exactly the situation I was talking about in my above post. I was pulled over in Banning, and requested county seat since work was closer to it. I expected Riverside, CA court, but Moreno Valley was listed in his lookup as the county seat. When I went to appear there was a note on the door the court no longer existed. This is one of the only tickets I lost in CA too, because I did trial by dec, had to get it to Riverside and explain to them, then I lost that and trial de novo, but the date of trial de novo I was moving out of state and lost by default even though the officer didn't show either :/

  5. #4
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    You should have flown back to CA to deny those people their money. I once flew to San Diego, spending about $200-250 on plane tickets and a rental car, plus I had to take a day off work, to deny the city $45 worth of parking fines, just on principle.

  6. #5
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    Generally I would have, circumstances at the time prevented me, and would have required asking for a continuance, which would have guaranteed the cop showing up - besides it didn't effect my record anyways as I got an out of state DL before it showed up on the record and got my insurance switched quickly. It's since dropped off my California record a long time ago

  7. #6
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    Very good information. Thread stuck.

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  8. #7
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    List of county seats of California:

    Alameda County: Oakland
    Alpine County: Markleeville
    Amador County: Jackson
    Butte County: Oroville
    Calaveras County: San Andreas
    Colusa County: Colusa
    Contra Costa County: Martinez
    Del Norte County: Crescent City
    El Dorado County: Placerville
    Fresno County: Fresno
    Glenn County: Willows
    Humboldt County: Eureka
    Imperial County: El Centro
    Inyo County: Independence
    Kern County: Bakersfield
    Kings County: Hanford
    Lake County: Lakeport
    Lassen County: Susanville
    Los Angeles County: Los Angeles
    Madera County: Madera
    Marin County: San Rafael
    Mariposa County : Mariposa
    Mendocino County: Ukiah
    Merced County: Merced
    Modoc County: Alturas
    Mono County: Bridgeport
    Monterey County: Salinas
    Napa County: Napa
    Nevada County: Nevada City
    Orange County: Santa Ana
    Placer County: Auburn
    Plumas County: Quincy
    Riverside County: Riverside
    Sacramento County: Sacramento
    San Benito County: Hollister
    San Bernardino County: San Bernardino
    San Diego County: San Diego
    San Francisco County: San Francisco
    San Joaquin County: Stockton
    San Luis Obispo County: San Luis Obispo
    San Mateo County: Redwood City
    Santa Barbara County: Santa Barbara
    Santa Clara County: San Jose
    Santa Cruz County: Santa Cruz
    Shasta County: Redding
    Sierra County: Downieville
    Siskiyou County: Yreka
    Solano County: Fairfield
    Sonoma County: Santa Rosa
    Stanislaus County: Modesto
    Sutter County: Yuba City
    Tehama County: Red Bluff
    Trinity County: Weaverville
    Tulare County: Visalia
    Tuolumne County: Sonora
    Ventura County: Ventura
    Yolo County: Woodland
    Yuba County: Marysville

    This obviously works best in large counties, and in counties with a very large aspect ratio (length to width). For example, if you look at a map of counties and county seats in California, you'll notice that in the Sierra Nevada region, most counties extend far up into the mountains, with their county seats in the lowlands (far western sides). So if you're from the big urban areas and you're ticketed in the high sierra, you can move the trial an hour or more away from where you got the ticket. The best places to use this are probably the Sierra counties, and the very large Southern California counties with their county seats all the way at one corner of the county: Riverside and San Bernardino. So if you're from urban California and ticketed while driving to Vegas on I-15, demand to be tried in San Bernardino.

    I guess another thing to take away from this is that if you're going to speed, especially if you have no CMs, do it farther from the county seat than where you live/work. At least if you get unlucky and get a ticket, you have a better chance of getting it dismissed.

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