Leave the Isaac Newton crap at home. You are just going to piss the judge off for wasting his/her time. This is not a trial by jury, this is a judge making the decision. Be considerate of his/her time - he/she is probably going through a hundred cases that day.

The only issue is positive identification of you and your vehicle. Make sure to read the reports the witnesses filed and analyze what they say. Determine how you can reasonably defend yourself, Isaac Newton is not reasonable. I would have your record pulled to show that you have not done this in the past. If you have a clear record that is best.

A time stamped video tape is reasonable evidence.

 

This should be an easy victory for you...I can't even believe the officer cited you.

A. The officer didn't see you violate the law. He has zero evidence against you.

B. If he testifies that witnesses saw you, they have to be present in court.

C. You have the right to cross-examine the witness against you.

D. If the witness is not in court, the officer's testimony cannot be admissable as evidence, because you have no way of cross examining the witness. The judge will have no choice but to throw out the case.

E. If the witness does show up to court (highly unlikely), you can easily defeat them in a cross-examination (did they take note of your license plate? Did they correctly identify the type of car? Etc.), thus putting reasonable doubt in the judge's mind.

Don't sweat this one....you should win easily....just don't try your color idea. You know as well as everyone else that for the most part you can tell what color cars are at night.

 

Another idea is to check (through your Department of Motor Vehicles, or even through Honda) how many red S2000s have been sold in your area. I'm sure yours isn't the only one, so unless the "witnesses" got your plate number, you can always show "reasonable doubt" by saying "Look, there are ten S2000s in this city - how do you know it wasn't them?", not to mention that you could also look up every similar looking car in the DMV registry and bring that along (Vettes, Miatas, vert 300ZX - all of these could easily be mistaken for an S2K by the ignorant viewer). The 7-11 video is also a good idea, not to mention any other friends you might have that saw you at such-and-such a place at such-and-such a time (ie, an alibi). As Rob said, don't sweat this one - you'll win easily.

 

don't take a chance, i would hire a lawyer. isn't street racing a rather serious offense?

 

The lawyer will save you money in the long run.. (Insurance) This shows the judge that you are serious about this. It sounds like you have a strong case. I doubt you will get the Video without a lawyer, so this alone sould be worth his fee. Remember Lawyers and Judges went to the same schools and work together daily. Use this plus traffic lawyers are cheap, normally the cost is the fine they would save you. But the savings in insurance is well worth it.

 

Another thing to consider....do you have a receipt from 7-11? They usually show the time of the transaction. If not, 7-11 might have records of anything you bought there.

Beyond that, the officer relying on witness testimony so vague as what was presented should be inadmissable. Unless the witness ID's you personally or ID's your license plate, you shouldn't have a problem. It'd be like someone saying, "I saw some black guy rob the store," and that giving carte blanche rights to the police to not only stop but also arrest ANY black people in the area.

BTW, how could he cite you for street racing if he doesn't have a radar gun showing your speed? Perhaps state law allows such vague arrests.

 

Go to Court- Plea Not Guilty- Get a Lawyer, no case there.

 

The problem with getting a lawyer is that it will probably cost you as much to pay the ticket so I would just go into court and plead not guilty and then you aren't going to be tried that day, they will set another court day that you will have to go in and the witnesses will have to show to identify your car. Also if they did not get a license plate number then you can argue that there are many cars with rear wings. The no licence plate ticket you will have to pay though, I know New York requires the front license plate but other than that I dont know.

 

Save your money...this case is such a no-brainer (unless you aren't giving us the whole picture) getting a lawyer would be a waste of money. You don't need one. It will be easy to have this case thrown out.

 

My advice would be to go to court the first time without a lawyer and talk to the DA/judge and see what you can work out... and if you can't come to a decision then you can almost always come back again... this time with a lawyer.
The thing is traffic court procedures are different in almost every town so I wouldn't quote me on this.