August 1, 2008
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Notice of Transfer to County of Residence
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The power on Ian's brakes failed, resulting
in a minor fender-bender. It occurred along Gender
Road, in Franklin County. The normal thing to do
with juvenile offenders is to transfer it to their
county of residence. This notified us of that.
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August 12, 2008
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Traffic Citation Received on 07/29/2008
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When Fairfield County received the notice of Ian's
citation, they scheduled a hearing, for either
arraignment or trial.
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August 27, 2008
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Hearing
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Because Ian was charged with the crime of Failure to
Maintain an Assured Clear Distance, and we were sure
it was due to brake failure, we decided to deny the
charge, talk to the Prosecutor's office, and try to
plea it down to Operation of an Unsafe Vehicle (which
describes the actual situation).
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August 27, 2008
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Notice of Hearing
Trial set for 9/19/2008 at 2:15 PM
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After denying the charge, trial was set for a later date.
I wanted to get the plea before that trial.
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September 11, 2008
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Offer of Plea Agreement
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The Prosecutor offered the plea (theoretically, not
because of the brake failure, but because this was
a first offense for Ian and nobody got hurt in the
accident), and we accepted it.
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September 19, 2008
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Hearing
D.E.F.T. Class Behavior Contract
Juvenile Driver Improvement Program Training Agreement
D.E.F.T. Registration
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At the "trial,", Ian admitted to Operation of an Unsafe
Vehicle. He then told the story to the Magistrate,
and I told the Magistrate what I had done to verify
brake failure and what I had done to fix the brakes.
Nonetheless, Ian was sentenced to a fine, a license suspension
of 30 days, traffic school, and writing a 500-word essay.
This seemed excessive to me for something that really
wasn't Ian's fault. It was also the same sentence that
my daughter got 4 years ago for running a stop sign
and causing an accident. It just didn't seem right.
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September 22, 2008
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Objection to Magistrate's Order
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Every order of a Magistrate (who is not a real, elected
Judge), must be approved by the Judge. Thus, one gets
an opportunity to object to the magistrate's orders
before that ruling really takes effect. We objected
to the sentence, and asked that the Judge cancel
(vacate) the traffic school portion of the sentence.
We also asked for a reduction in the length of the
suspension.
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October 3, 2008
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Entry
Permission to withdraw the plea and try the case
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For some reason, the Judge totally misread our
Objection. We were quite clear in what we were
asking, but the Judge issued an Entry permitting
Ian to withdraw his plea (the one I had worked
so hard to get) and go to trial on the original
charge. What?
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October 9, 2008
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Notice of Hearing
Trial set for 10/27/2008 at 2:30 PM
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This is the Notice of the new date for the trial
(that we didn't want). Notice that we did not
receive either this or the "permission to withdraw"
until October 14th, since the Clerk bundled these
two together, and Columbus Day intervened.
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October 17, 2008
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Motion to Convert Trial Date to Status Hearing
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This was my attempt to straighten things out.
I let the Judge know we were not
going to withdraw Ian's plea, and we wanted
the sentence reduced.
I went in to the Clerk's office when I found out
about this, and was told I really shouldn't worry
about it. The clerk talked to the Court Administrator,
who supposedly said, "The judge just wants to see you."
(However, keep in mind that nothing a clerk says is
the least bit binding—in some sense it's just
scuttlebutt.) Anyways, I figured we could just straighten
it out in court, and not have the trial.
However, on the 16th, Ian reported
that his friends were getting subpoenas. Uh-oh. So
I filed a subpoena of our own (to be able to make a strong
defense if needed).
Shortly after filing the motion, I got a call from
the Prosecutor, saying that they were going to oppose
the motion. However, after a few days of not seeing
a memo contra from her, I sent an email asking about
it. She responded by saying she had decided not to
respond to it. My suspicion is that she had finally
read my original motion.
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October 20, 2008
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Entry
Trial date (10/27/2008) vacated
Objection to Magistrate's Order Overruled.
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Here the Judge canceled the new trial date.
However, he also overruled our Objection to
the Magistrate's Order. It is my impression
that the Judge really could not have read it,
or he would not have made the initial mistake,
and he wouldn't have overruled the Objection.
However, this is a final order, so one's
options to continue fighting it are limited.
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October 24, 2008
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Petition for Post-Conviction Relief
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This is one of those options. In the petition,
we asked the Judge to vacate two invalid
(unlawful) portions of Ian's sentence.
The Prosecutor has 10 days to respond to this.
The other option (which must be done within 30
days of the final order) is to file an Appeal.
This is still an option.
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November 5, 2008
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Total Cost Due
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So then the Court billed us for the subpoenas
that the Prosecutor issued due to the mistaken
Entry by the Court thinking we wanted a new
trial. The Prosecutor issued 6 subpoenas
(costing $13.51, $14.68, $12.34, $10.58, $10.58, and $14.68)
and I issued one (hey, if Ian really was
going to trial we needed to defend him), costing $12.92.
Total bill: $89.29.
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November 10, 2008
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Motion to Waive Payment of Additional Costs
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So, the way to deal with this is to file a motion asking
for the Court to waive those costs. We'll see what
they do. Also, the usual thing is to include a proposed
entry for the Judge to sign if he agrees with the motion.
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November 12, 2008
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Transcript Request
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At this point, not a whole lot is going on. Also, there
is a 30-day deadline for filing an appeal. That deadline
started the day of the "Final Order", which is when
Judge Williams adopted the order of the Magistrate Judge.
It looks like I'm going to have to appeal, so to get
that started, I need to order a transcript, which is what
this is. (Actually, for this sort of case I may not need
a transcript, but I want to foreclose the argument that
there was some sort of agreement with the Magistrate
that Ian would take the traffic school and essay in return
for not getting a 90-day license suspension.)
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November 18, 2008
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Notice of Appeal
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OK, here we go. No response to the Petition for Post-Conviction
Relief, so the last option (before the deadline) is to do
the appeal. The way things work is that the Notice of Appeal
is filed with the trial court clerks.
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November 18, 2008
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Docketing Statement
Transcript Request.
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Along with the Notice of Appeal, a Docketing Statement is
also required. This lets the clerks decide whether to put
the case on the regular calendar, or use the accelerated
calendar. We requested the accelerated calendar, since the
issue is really fairly simple, and there is no oral argument
on the accelerated calendar.
The Docketing Statement also has to include the order being
appealed from, and the request for a transcript, if needed.
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November 18, 2008
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Motion to Stay Execution of Remaining Sentence Pending Appeal
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The other important thing to do for an appeal (at least
a criminal appeal) is to stay the sentence, if possible.
This means that the Court waits for the result of the appeal
to finish out the sentence. This is particularly important
because, for a misdemeanor such as this, if you serve the
sentence, your appeal becomes moot. So you have to make
some sort of attempt to stop the sentence before it
is fully executed.
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November 18, 2008
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Notice of Filing of Appeal
Transcript Request.
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Once the trial court clerk gets the appeal, they forward it
to the Court of Appeals. There it gets its new case number:
08CA78. (By the way, "78" seems awfully low for this late
in the year.) The Clerk then makes sure that everybody who
should get copies does get copies. Interestingly, they sent
me (me, not Ian) a copy, presumably as the father of a juvenile.
The Court of Appeals docket is online
here.
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December 1, 2008
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Entry
Objection to Magistrate's Order Granted.
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Well, look at this. The Petition for Post-Conviction
Relief was granted. Of course, that now means I have
to unravel the appeal.
In talking to the clerks, the Judge has changed
a lot of things as a result of this. He finally realized
that the sentencing scheme he'd been using all these
years was unlawful. Can you imagine the "Oh, shit" moment?
Anyways, it looks like he is doing the proper thing.
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December 1, 2008
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Entry
Objection to Magistrate's Order Granted.
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The Trial Court also filed a copy of the above entry
with the Court of Appeals.
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December 5, 2008
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Motion to Dismiss Appeal
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To unravel the appeal, what I need to do is file a Motion to
Dismiss the Appeal. That's what this is. Also, local rules
ask for a proposed judgment entry.
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December 5, 2008
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Entry
Additional Costs Waived.
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And here the judge granted the motion to waive the costs
associated with those extra subpoenas. We really
can't ask for more. That finishes things up; all we
still have to wait for is for the Appeal to be dismissed.
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December 22, 2008
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Judgment Entry
Appeal Dismissed.
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And here's the dismissal of the appeal. They did not use
my proposed judgment entry (it looks like I got a few
minor details wrong in what I wrote), but they did
follow the part where the Appellant (us) was taxed for
the cost of the appeal. I really don't think I should
have to have paid these, since if the juvenile court had
made their decision on the Petition for Post-Conviction
Relief in a timely fashion, I wouldn't have had to file
the appeal. The cost of the appeal was $38. But it's
just not worth fighting this, particularly since we got
back the cost of traffic school, and the costs of those
additional subpoenas were removed.
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