Municipal Court Archives - 636 Traffic Law

STOP SIGN TICKETS IN MISSOURI…

12AprMarch 29, 2021 By Charles Moore

STOP SIGN TICKETS IN MISSOURI

Stop sign tickets in Missouri are very common and carry different points on your license depending on where you get the ticket / which type of law enforcement officer writes the ticket.

This article discusses stop sign tickets in Missouri and how to get them resolved with a minimum fine and no points on your record.

Stop sign tickets received as a municipal ordinance violation, typically from a violation within a municipality with its own police force, carry 1 point if there is no accident, 2 if there is an accident.

Stop sign tickets in Missouri carry 2 points if charged under state law, usually by a Missouri Highway Patrol trooper.

They also carry 2 points if charged under a county’s ordinance, and we usually see that where the person was pulled over by a county’s sheriff officer.

No matter how many points the ticket carries, you can hire a stop sign ticket lawyer St. Charles to get the ticket amended to zero points, which will keep the points off your license and from insurance premiums increasing.

Remember that these tickets are usually given from an officer watching the driver from a fixed position. Sometimes that position is not at a good angle because the officer does not want to be seen. This can work to your advantage since your lawyer can point that out. It’s not that unusual to use things like Google Maps to our client’s advantage because we can confirm the location of the officer and make the argument that from the officer’s angle our client appeared to not come to a full stop but actually did.

CONCLUSION

In any event, in almost every case we can get the ticket amended to a no-point violation with a reasonable fine. That is not a bad second outcome if that’s how things work out. Remember also that by hiring a lawyer, you avoid having to attend court in the first place. Municipal courts in the St. Louis area are held during the week, either during working hours or in the evening. If you don’t hire a lawyer you can plan on having to take an entire morning off from work, or losing an evening to sitting in court waiting for your chance to speak to a prosecutor.

Charles J. Moore is the founder and owner of Traffic Ticket Center. He has been both a municipal prosecutor and a defense attorney during in his 17 years of practice, experience which greatly enhances his clients in cases where they are charged with a traffic offense, regardless of the charge.

Traffic Tickets And The Missouri Driver Improvement Program…

01FebJanuary 27, 2021 By Charles Moore

TRAFFIC TICKETS AND THE MISSOURI DRIVER IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM

Over the last few years, more and more municipalities are making the resolution of traffic tickets by clients to first complete the Missouri Driver Improvement Program, or “DIP”.

As a careless driving traffic ticket attorney St. Peters, I am very familiar with all the workings of the various municipal courts in St. Charles County. The traditional system where prosecutors were amenable to reducing tickets to non-moving violations in exchange for a fine has been heavily scrutinized.

Most of this scrutiny has been negative and as a result changes have been made.

The Missouri Supreme Court now caps how much some municipalities in and around the St. Louis area can charge drivers for traffic ticket fines. And they also cap the percentage of revenue for a town that can come from court fines.

One effect this has had for a traffic ticket St. Charles are lower fines but prosecutors requiring some action by the driver to show improvement. More and more, we are seeing a requirement that our clients complete the Missouri Driver Improvement Program.

Sometimes we are seeing that the prosecutor allow an amendment to a non-moving violation with no points (which keeps your insurance premiums lower) after the driver shows completion of the program. And in other cases, the program must be completed before the prosecutor will even offer an amendment.

This eight (8) hour program is essentially a defense driving class with information about how to avoid a DWI charge, how to safely share the road, rights-of-way, speeding, blind spots and tailgating. It also discusses the dangers of texting and driving and other forms of distracted drivers.

It can be taken online and the cost ranges from $12 to $30 depending on the approved provider you use.

In some cases, the Missouri Driver Improvement Program is used by traffic ticket attorney near me to lessen more serious charges that may not otherwise be amended. In other words, lawyers sometimes use the availability of the program proactively to get a better outcome for their clients. Our office has used this tactic many times with consistent success.

The DIP class must not only be court approved by you must receive a passing score of 70% or better. Once completed, the proof of completion is usually forwarded to the court. You can also contact your insurance agent to find out if completing the court can ensure your insurance rates will stay the same, regardless of the outcome of your case.

Here is a link to the course: http://missourisafetycenter.com

Speeding Tickets in Missouri…

15JunJune 10, 2020 By Charles Moore

SPEEDING TICKET IN MISSOURI

A basic speeding ticket in Missouri is relatively easy for an experienced attorney to handle. At Traffic Ticket Center, we keep our fees low because a basic speeding ticket in Missouri is a routine procedure that we complete every day at our law office.

Unfortunately, too many people do not contact a traffic ticket attorney St. Peters to handle their ticket. Instead, they pay the fine that is listed on the back of the ticket to be done with it.

However, this can be a costly decision.

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T PLEAD GUILTY

We have several people call to inquire about Missouri speeding tickets each day and after we explain the process and state our fee for our firm to resolve the ticket. We explain that the court will also assess a fine to be paid, which is set by the prosecutor.

Once the potential client hears this, they may take another look at the back of the ticket where it states they can pay the $100 fine now. At this point we try our best to relay the consequences of paying the $100 fine to court as opposed to hiring us.

POINTS ON YOUR LICENSE

When you simply pay the fine listed on the back of your citation, the court accepts this as an admission of guilt or admission to the fact that you were speeding. Once it is recorded that you plead guilty to the charge, the court will pass the information along to Jefferson City where the state will assess points to your permanent driving record. Too many points and you can have your license suspended.

The number of points assessed will vary depending on the severity of the ticket. Here is a link to the various types of violations and the points they carry: https://dor.mo.gov/forms/899.pdf

INCREASED CAR INSURANCE COSTS

Points assessed on your driving record also leads to higher rates for car insurance. The increase in insurance rates is because the insurance company will use the points assessed on your driving record as proof that you disregard traffic laws and are therefore a higher risk to end up in a car accident.

Since the insurance company would have to pay out on your accident, they can use the points as an excuse to increase your rates to compensate for the added risk. Also, insurance companies will search for any excuse to increase your rates. It’s good business for them and tough luck for you.

It’s important to understand too that in recent years, you may have noticed that your insurance rates are increasing every year anyway, no matter how good of a driver you are.

Why is that? Because of the increase in serious accidents involving texting and driving and distracted driving. Therefore, it’s more important than ever to minimize already expensive insurance rates by avoiding taking points on your license.

DON’T LIKE GOING TO COURT? YOU WON’T HAVE TO

A major advantage of hiring a traffic ticket lawyer St. Peters to handle your ticket is that in most cases, you’ll never need to attend court. That saves you from having to take off work for a morning or afternoon court appearance, or having to waste an evening wasting for hours with everyone else. If your time is valuable to you, hiring us will save you that valuable time.

CONCLUSION

When you hire an experienced attorney to handle the ticket, they will work with the local prosecuting attorney to get the ticket reduced from a moving violation to a non-moving violation. A non-moving violation does not result in points on your record and therefor will not lead to an increase in insurance rates.

Traffic Ticket Center has resolved hundreds of tickets for clients over the years and our goal is to keep your record clean and your insurance rates down.

Call us at (636) 486-2669 to learn more.

Shoplifting Charge in Missouri…

02MayMay 2, 2017 By Charles Moore

Shoplifting Charge in Missouri

In Missouri, shoplifting is where you get caught taking items worth less than $500 and punishment can be up to a year in jail and up to a $1,000 fine. Sometimes the charge is deemed to be stealing, theft or “petty theft”.

Since shoplifting is a crime involving dishonesty, it is crucial that anyone charged with shoplifting in Missouri hire a lawyer. A person who pleads guilty to shoplifting will have that on his record and this could dim his future employment prospects. Employers are especially wary of hiring anyone who has been convicted of a crime involving dishonesty.

Hiring an attorney will ensure that your case is adequately reviewed to see if it can be dismissed, and, if not, reduced to a lesser charge.

In most shoplifting cases in Missouri, the defendant is charged in municipal court. Outcomes after hiring an attorney usually include paying a fine and court costs, possibly completing a class regarding theft, often community service and in some cases, completion of one or two years of probation.

Fines and court costs can range from $150 to $700. The theft offender class can be completed in a day and costs between $50 and $75.

The outcome of your case will depend on a number of factors, including where you were arrested, what items you allegedly took, your interaction with the police officer(s) at the scene, any prior convictions and what I would call “special circumstances”, i.e. any particular facts which make your case different than another case or that would cause a prosecutor to see your case in a different light.

As always, hiring an attorney for your Missouri shoplifting case is not only essential to getting a better resolution of the charge, but it will also remove a lot of the stress of having to go to court not knowing what to expect. In some cases, you may not have to attend court at all.

Been charged with shoplifting or stealing in Missouri? Traffic Ticket Center can help. Call us right away at (636) 486-2669.

How Serious is Shoplifting or Stealing in Missouri?

20FebFebruary 13, 2017 By Charles Moore

How Serious is Shoplifting or Stealing in Missouri?

Under Missouri law, stealing is a Class A misdemeanor if the value of the merchandise is under $500. Class A misdemeanors in Missouri carry a fine of up to $1,000 and up to one (1) year in jail.

Now, under Missouri law you can also be sued in a civil suit by the store that you allegedly shoplifted from. This usually begins with what’s called a “civil demand letter”. It will say you owe the store money for shoplifting goods.

Hiring an attorney is very important if you are charged with shoplifting or stealing. First, the attorney can often get the charge amended to a lesser offense, especially if you have no prior convictions on your record. Frankly, each court treats these charges completely different. In some courts, your best result, other than a dismissal would be probation. Specifically, an attorney can seek a SIS (Suspended Imposition of Sentence) plea and probation.

As I have discussed before, if you receive an SIS no conviction is entered on your record if you complete the probation period with no further convictions.

Aside from where you received the charge, there are many other factors that are considered by the prosecutor. For example, are you young? Were you cooperative with security at the store? How much was the item you stole and what was it? Have you ever been convicted of shoplifting, theft or some other crime of dishonesty such as larceny or fraud?

Keep in mind that when officers write a ticket for shoplifting, they often will call it stealing under $500, just stealing or often theft (or even theft under $500). All of those descriptions would fall under the charge of shoplifting.

Again, it’s not a charge to be taken lightly. When employers do background checks, they are often forgiving of many mistakes people make like a DWI or other serious traffic offenses. But shoplifting charges, in their view, relate to your character and trustworthiness. If you’re a bank for example, how can you justify hiring someone who has plead guilty to a shoplifting charge?

That’s why it makes the most sense to hire a lawyer to represent your interests and protect your future. I’ve prosecuted these cases and defended them and that experience helps my clients.

Traffic ticket courts in St. Charles County…

06FebJanuary 28, 2017 By Charles Moore

When we get a call from someone who received a traffic ticket in St. Charles County, one of the first questions we ask is when and where their court date is.

That’s because it makes a difference in what we charge clients and the procedures to handle the ticket for the clients.

St. Charles County has three layers of courts. First, each town has a municipal court. If you get a ticket in O’Fallon, written by a police officer from the O’Fallon Police Department your court date will be at O’Fallon Municipal Court. Makes sense, right?

What most people don’t know is that St. Charles County has their own court for traffic tickets and that is called the St. Charles County Municipal Court. If you get pulled over for a traffic ticket by a St. Charles County Sheriff’s Deputy, your court date will be at St. Charles County Municipal Court. That court is located, by the way, just north of Highway 70 off Highway 79. Certain unincorporated areas of St. Charles County is where the sheriff’s department has jurisdiction. A good example would be the Defiance, Missouri area off Highway DD.

The other court in St. Charles County is the St. Charles County Circuit Court, located on Second Street in downtown St. Charles (one block west of Main Street). This court generally handles violations of state law, but for traffic tickets the cases that are heard here are tickets issued by the Missouri State Highway Patrol. A common example would be a speeding ticket received while driving in St. Charles County on Highway 70 or Highway 64. Incidentally, this court also handles more serious charges like felonies and serious misdemeanor cases.

From the standpoint of speeding tickets, however, the cases are treated pretty much the same in terms of how of our office would resolve them. For relatively minor offenses like speeding, we can usually get very good results and the same outcome for our clients whether we are in St. Charles City Municipal Court, St. Charles County Municipal Court or St. Charles County Circuit Court.

Things get trickier for St. Charles County Circuit court for more serious charges like DWIs, Stealing and Drug Possession. We can still help clients but the fees are higher because the cases take longer to resolve and involve much more investigation.