What are the chances of winning a traffic trial?
That depends on several different factors. First, where will the trial occur? In New York City, parts of Long Island and a few upstate cities, traffic offenses are handled in “Hearing Bureaus” operated by the NYS DMV. In these Hearings trials take place before an administrative law judge who works for the DMV. Also, unlike traffic trials in other courts the standard of proof the the prosecution must bear is very low (basically that a majority of the evidence supports the charge, otherwise known by the legal phrase “preponderance of the evidence”). However, in the other parts of the state traffic trials are conducted in local town, village or city courts. In these courts the burden of proof is the same as in a criminal trial, namely “beyond a reasonable doubt.” That said, traffic trials are never easy to win. If a case is simply the defendant’s testimony (“I wasn’t speeding”) against the police officer’s testimony (“I clocked him on my properly calibrated and operated radar”), the defen
