Usually, a driver does not need to appear in court to enter a not guilty plea. In this situation, you may need to post bail, which is a modest amount of money that will be returned if you defeat the ticket. You have a right to plead not guilty, even if you are not sure whether you are guilty. If a judge refuses to allow you to enter a nolo contendere plea, you should plead not guilty and review the situation with an attorney. Pleading guilty can be used to establish your liability in a civil case, while pleading nolo contendere cannot. Technically, you are just admitting the facts in the charge. While this sounds essentially like a guilty plea, it has the critical difference of not being an admission of guilt. This means that you are not contesting the charge. If you believe that you may have a defense, you should plead not guilty. The violation still will appear on your driving record, adding points to your license and potentially increasing your insurance premiums. This plea can be worth considering if you are facing serious financial difficulties, but otherwise it is probably not worthwhile. Sometimes the judge even will suspend the fine. In unusual cases, a driver may be able to convince a judge to reduce their fine if they have a convincing explanation for the violation. If the driver does not have a viable defense, the next best option may be a nolo contendere plea. As a result, paying the fine does not expose you to civil liability if the violation was related to an accident.Ī driver may be exposed to civil liability if they plead guilty in court to a violation that resulted in an accident. A driver usually does not need to enter a formal guilty plea in court but instead can pay the fine by mail. This can make it important to contest a traffic ticket if you believe that you have a viable defense. If you get another violation soon afterward, however, having the pre-existing violation on your record could put these things at risk. A single traffic violation probably will not have major consequences for your license or insurance premiums. This will result in having the violation entered on your traffic record. (You can still exercise the right if your state provides it but does not use the arraignment procedure, but you should ask the court clerk how to exercise the right.) The arraignment also allows you to find out about your right to get the evidence that will be used against you, a process known as discovery in legal language. If your state provides the right to a jury trial in traffic cases, you will ask for a jury trial at this stage if you choose to exercise the right. They will tell you the nature of your charge and your legal rights, and then they will ask you whether you understand your rights. This involves entering your plea in court before a judge. Some but not all states still use the arraignment procedure for traffic tickets. Also, you will want to research the law governing your alleged violation to find out which plea makes sense for you. You should contact the court in advance of the deadline for making your decision to find out how to enter your plea. You can plead guilty with an explanation or plead nolo contendere, which are useful only in certain situations. You can pay the fine, which is similar to pleading guilty. In legal terms, this is known as “pleading.” There are four main ways to plead if you are not eligible for traffic school or do not want to go to traffic school. If you have received a traffic ticket, you will need to decide whether to pay your fine or go to court to fight it.
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