If you find yourself having to go to traffic court, Cobb County State Court/Traffic Court is one of the more pleasant courts to visit in Georgia. The people who work in the court system, including the clerks, judicial staff, judges and prosecutors do their best to treat people well and accomplish their job in a professional and friendly way.

Cobb County State Court is also one of the busiest courts in the state. This means the prosecutors have to move a high volume of cases. Some calendars can have 50 to 100 or more cases per day. As a result, when you go to court, you will have a limited amount of time to speak with the prosecutor – sometimes as few as 1 to 2 minutes.

Normally the prosecutor will call people up, one at a time and speak with each person at the podium. There are few opportunities to have truly private conversation with the prosecutor and this can exacerbate an already stressful situation. Even people who normally feel extremely confident in other areas of their life may feel like a fish out of water in this setting. This is often a very intimidating and overwhelming experience, no matter what your background is.

Knowing what to say and how to say it is a critical component to the success of your negotiation with the prosecutor. The prosecutor has a great deal of discretion about how your case is handled and can make things very easy, or very difficult for you. In those brief moments of conversation, the prosecutor is considering how to exercise that discretion. All too often people are careless about how they approach a prosecutor, forgetting that we are all human and as a general rule, we all have a negative response to people who approach us in an aggressive or disagreeable manner.

Whether you are facing a basic traffic ticket or minor in possession of alcohol all the way to something as serious as a DUI or drug offense, the outcome of your case can have a rippling effect in other areas of your life. A conviction could impact your driver’s license, scholarship eligibility, insurance rates, and/or employment opportunities

The prosecutor handling your case most
likely understands exactly how a plea of guilty or nolo may affect your license, scholarship eligibility or insurance rates. However the prosecutor is under no obligation to advise you of such consequences. If you have not already done your research or spoken with an attorney before you go to court, you may find there is any number of unpleasant collateral consequences stemming from even basic traffic convictions.

You don’t always need a lawyer when attending Cobb County Traffic Court or State Court, but you should strongly consider speaking with one before you go to court so that you understand how a conviction may affect other areas of your life.

What are the immediate consequences of missing a traffic court date?

Discovering there’s a bench warrant out for your arrest because you’ve missed a court date in Atlanta Municipal Court can be daunting. This experience is even more distressing when you learn about it from a police officer during a minor traffic stop. However, knowing the process can empower you to resolve this issue, either independently or with the help of an attorney.

To begin with, it’s crucial to understand that if you miss your Traffic court appearance, the court won’t automatically assign a new date to resolve your citation. Instead, your case is marked as a Failure to Appear (FTA) and set aside, and it will remain dormant until you or your attorney address the FTA status.

Why is my license suspended?

FTAs can be detrimental to your driver’s license. The Court Clerk’s Office informs the Department of Driver Services (DDS) about your missed court date. The DDS then sends you a suspension notice but we hear from many drivers who never receive a notice. For out-of-state drivers, the FTA notification is also sent to your home state, which typically results in license suspension there too.

What steps are required to resolve the FTA?

To remove a case from FTA status, you (or your lawyer) may need to physically appear before a judge, although the specific process can vary depending on the judge handling your case.

After resolving your underlying traffic case, the Court Clerk will be free to issue a 912 form. You will need to submit this directly to DDS in order to remove any pending FTA license suspension.

Lastly, consider obtaining a Fail-Safe letter from the Clerk’s Office. This letter informs any officer intending to arrest you on the bench warrant that the court has lifted the warrant. It serves as a protective measure in case the officer’s system isn’t updated yet.

Although these issues can be navigated without an attorney, professional guidance can be invaluable. If you have questions or need to explore your options, feel free to schedule a free consultation with EHG Law Firm today.

 

In almost every instance, a following too closely ticket (O.C.G.A. 40-6-49) is issued only when there has been an accident with a rear-impact collision. When there are only two cars involved, and the rear driver is at fault, this citation makes sense.

However it can often be over-used, especially when the accident involved three or more vehicles. Many three-car collisions occur when the first vehicle is forced to stop short, and the car immediately behind the first vehicle would have been able to stop in time if he/she hadn’t been pushed forward by the third car in the rear!

It can feel very frustrating to the driver of the second car because there is little that could have been done to avoid being pushed into the first car by the rear vehicle.

Most responding officers do not have sophisticated accident re-constructionist training. Although there is a very advanced course that traffic investigators can enroll in, it is a relatively significant academic endeavor that most patrol officers have not yet attempted.

Further, if no one was seriously injured and/or there is no suspicion of drugs or alcohol impairment, very little is done to definitively establish how the accident occurred or who was at fault. If you are injured, you should contact a personal injury attorney to discuss your options, regardless of whether you received a ticket or not.

The average citizen is frequently surprised to learn how perfunctory and abbreviated a standard, run-of-the-mill, injury-free traffic accident investigation is. This is in part, because these types of accidents (where no one was injured) are not prioritized in the same way that more serious accidents are — which from an efficiency perspective, makes a whole lot of sense.

That being said, as the recipient of one of these undeserved traffic tickets, the officer’s lack of attention to detail can be excruciatingly frustrating. This may be one of the reasons you should consider consulting a traffic attorney.

Most people who go to court without an attorney choose to plead nolo, or no contest. This often sounds appealing because drivers tend to assume that the negative consequences of a traffic conviction are related to the accumulation of points. Although collecting 15 or more points within a two-year period would trigger a suspension, most drivers have far fewer than 15 points on their driving history.

The problem with nolo is that the conviction will appear on your driving history. This means that both the insurance company and future employers will see the conviction. The primary reason anyone would review your driving history is to evaluate how cautious and careful you are, or in the alternative, how likely you are to engage in risky (driving) behavior.
That is why, even if you were the at-fault driver, you may want to see if it is still possible to protect an otherwise clean driving history. Increasingly employers are relying upon applicant’s driving histories to evaluate job candidates, or prior to approving promotions. Maintaining a clean driving history has numerous financial benefits, along with peace of mind.

Speak to a traffic attorney today about your options. Even if it is simply for a free consultation, an experienced traffic attorney can advise you about possible defenses and/or strategies for presenting relevant information to the prosecutor when you go to court. A traffic attorney can tell you the general practices of your court and perhaps instruct you on how to avoid potential pitfalls.

 

Were you recently arrested for drug possession in Fulton County, Georgia? If so you should immediately speak with an experienced defense attorney to learn about the consequences you may be facing and what you can do to avoid harsh penalties!

The severity of the consequences for felony drug possession may vary depending on a number of factors, including which county you were arrested in, whether you’ve been arrested before, whether you are already on probation, and the amount of drugs discovered in your possession.

If this is your first drug possession arrest, your primary goal is going to be to keep a felony conviction from being reported on your criminal record. Drug convictions do not fall off your record after any amount of time; rather, a standard drug conviction will stay on your permanent record.   This could mean that for almost all future job or college applications you would be required to answer very uncomfortable questions pertaining to the drug arrest and conviction.

The first thing an experienced attorney will do is to review the circumstances surrounding the initial encounter with the law enforcement officer. Often drug possession charges start with a basic traffic stop. The driver is pulled over for something as common as failure to obey a traffic control device.

The officer makes contact with the driver and over the course of the traffic investigation, the officer usually will either (1) detect the odor of marijuana – or some other illegal substance; or (2) request and/or demand permission to search the car.

These search scenarios are particularly interesting cases because they often implicate important constitutional protections that are often ignored by law enforcement. Particularly when the driver is young and nervous an officer may be less cautious about steering clear of any constitutional pitfalls over the course of the stop and search of that driver.

This was the case recently in Bodiford v. State (A14A0683), which was decided in August of 2014. In that case a young driver was pulled over for speeding 10 mph over the speed limit. The officer had the driver exit the vehicle. Upon noticing that the driver appeared very nervous the officer expanded his investigation. He inquired about the status of the driver’s license and ultimately started fishing around for permission to search the vehicle. The driver didn’t know whether he could refuse permission.

While the driver tried to determine what to do, the officer brought a K-9 unit over to conduct a drug sniff search around the car. During the drug-dog search the officer uncovered a large amount of cocaine. However, this search was determined to be illegal since the officer had impermissibly prolonged the traffic stop.  As a result, the drug charge was dismissed.

Bodiford v. State is a great example of why challenging the legality of a search is one of the most effective ways to dismantle a pending drug possession charge.

If you are facing a felony drug possession charge, you should talk to an attorney about what your options are and find out whether you have important defenses available in your case!