i need help badly....
 

to those that were with me at the last taco7 meet u'll know what happened. i
last taco7 meet, a few of us went on a drive on mercer way and my friend john got into an unfortunate accident when he over sped into a ditch. we had to call paramedics, and those with me i t specified to hide in another parking lot while i took care of police/paradmedics/john's parents (he is my friend ya know). he's okay and came out with a few bruised ribs and such. well i received a notice in the mail from the mercer island municipal court, and am charged with reckless driving, i told the officer that only john and i had been driving, so only he and i were charged. i thought i'd get a hefty fine and be done with it but thats not the case. last monday was my arraignment and i found out i'm facing a charge of a year in prison....wtf...my next court date is set on the 7th of july.
currently i'm getting my case together and trying to find a proper attorney, i have 2 in mind, but if anyone knows any in the greater seattle/federalway/tacoma area that is known or specifically deals with this kind of case, i'd be VERY grateful if you pm'd me their info. thanks in advance!


sorry to those i didn't contact earlier (aka brobro tim) i've been really busy with fam/work/school and this crap....

wow... that is really something man. im not too sure about lawyers or attorneys but i hope you dont have to go to jail

I got one when I was 17 and they tried me as an adult. I hired an attorney and got 1 year probation and 500 dollars in fines. I dont see you getting 1 year in jail hope this helps.

You do know that if you get a reckless driving in washington, Like 90% of the time you will lose your license for 30 days, and if you want a CDL for a job, you wont be able to get a CDL. im going through some shit too right now, and thats what my lawyer told me.

Hmmm, I don't know any... sorry, best of luck :)!

It did make me curious though, you guys where just driving normal and he flew into the ditch!? WTF happened? Steering broke, or what?

Han! noo man that sucks I hope you work a better deal out prison is ridiculous

That's fucked that they can charge you with reckless... Did you write a statement saying you were driving aggressively? If not you should easily be able to get the charges dropped. John crashed and you were with him and witnessed it. That doesn't mean you were participating as well. Any decent traffic attorney should be able to get the dropped, or severely reduced. We're talking about injuries, not fatalities. And the people who cause fatalities don't get shit for jail time, so don't expect to go to jail, just a slap on the wrist and some fines, if you don't get out of it completely.

Man i drove east mercer many times. Its a crazy road.. there are a few 100 foot drop offs.. got lucky i think

hey thanks to all for the support. especially thanks to michelle for the links/phonenumbers of some attorneys. as for what happened, we honestly weren't blasting THAT fast. maybe...what 60-70%? john just happened to not see how deep the first long righthanded sweeper was and somehow got his car backwards down a 20 foot deep trench/ravine

since reckless driving is a gross misterminor( spelling?) u can get a maximum of 1 year in jail, keep in mind this is the MAXIMUM sentance, obviously most cases of that dont even get any jail time. maybe repeat offenders of ir say u ran someone over...

ive fought 2 of these tickets and got both of them reduced, to negligent driving, since you wernt the one who actually wrecked and no police saw you you could probably easily get out of it. your friend how ever would most likely be screwed since he wrecked...

Wow man, that really suck's hard. I hope everything works out for you and your friend in the end. They souldn't beable to charge you with that. "Good luck with your battle". I kinda know of good attorneys but he is not cheap, let me know if you still want his contact info.

You need to request a "discovery" from the prosecutors office. This is your legal right--whether you have an attorney or not--to see what evidence they're holding. This includes any statements that you or your friend made etc. This also includes the police report and will give the officers take on any of the events.

Since it's a criminal case, I'm pretty sure they must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you are guilty of what they're charging you with--so hopefully they don't have much. It would take some pretty blatant information on their part to prove this--so you should be able to see pretty quickly whether you can potentially get off the hook.

You should make the discover request ASAP so that you can have time to determine your next steps. Don't pay $1500 for a lawyer in this case unless it's necessary. However, I would suggest asking about a court-appointed attorney if it appears to YOU that their case is weak after seeing discovery, (in lieu of an expensive attorney) because he will at least be able to explain what you're looking at and you can run ideas past him or her.

I was charged with a reckless about 5 years ago and had a VERY bad driving history prior to this--regardless, I was given no jail-time, a 90 day suspended license and $1000 in fines. In my statement I admitted to driving/racing which at the time I was fine with doing.

However, my friend (the other driver) who was also arrested did NOT say a thing and the case was dropped against him because they had no evidence that he was the "racing driver" (which he was).

Consider this a lesson and try to learn something about the law and how the whole system works--it's interesting stuff and practical to know.

Erik ftw

Don't talk to the police. There main goal is to make you admit to wrongdoing whether your guilty or not. In your miranda rights the first one is you have the right to remain silent. You probably will get detained for not talking, but if there's no evidence they must release you.

Also don't trip on the 1 year. I was just facing 5 years. I have a criminal history and I got off with ten days, witch I didn't have to spend in jail. I did work in lieu of jail. I'm completely innocent of the crimes on witch I was charged. but 5 years or 10 days pretty easy decision IMO.

HAHA, I think Erik is right. Hell when the police just pull me over i dont say anything.. Infact when they ask me (Do you know why i pulled you over) i open a soda and drink it.
I never say anything ever. Pisses them off too

Daym, that sucks Han. I hope everything works out and take the advice you can from here as well as use GOOGLE.

Sometimes, its also just worth it to hire yourself an attorney who does all the work for you. Better fines than jail time. Keep us updated.

when i was 18 i rolled my mustang at 110 mph, 5 or 6 times, (thought i could dodge the deer) anyway, i was chagred with wreckless driving, and i got the DA to do a plee bargain for careless driving instead, bassicly i plead no contest, they drop the fine to careless, and all is said and done, i walked out of the court room with a 180 dollar fine, and no suspension of my license, you might want to look into this, if you dont think you can get off completely. you didnt wreck, so you should be fine, your budy wrecked but didnt endanger anyones life from the sounds of it, so he really should be able to just get careless driving like i did. hope this helps

Wow, sorry Han... I hope that it all works out for you.

call Fred Hopkins - 425.391.7427 NOW! He's an amazing traffic lawyer. Tell him you know Meister and You're a friend with the VW guys and he'll give you a cheaper rate.

SHIT!!!
dam, sorry to hear that Han... my advice would be to use a deferral, since you only have one per 7 years that might not be an option in your case you may have already used it but if not it would be the smartest thing to do. Reckless is another animal, it is very difficult to completely remove this from your record, usually the best that happens is it will drop to a Negligent 2nd.

Maybe you could tell them you were the 1st person that J called after it happend and you showed up to help a friend?/?

I would talk to these guys
http://www.speedinginseattle.com/
I have know people to have great luck through them.

for the record I have probably logged 30-40 laps on mercer and feel like I know the road like the back of my hand... and what I have learned from those laps is I don't feel comfortable pushing it, I'm calling a retirement from mercer rally's after what happen that night and before something else happends. This paired with a very close friend who is now in a wheel chair it isn't quite the same feeling of invincibility it once gave, now it's just like something waiting to bite you in the dark. that road is no joke!

i agree, if diversion is an option that would be best, then if you stay outa trouble for like a year, but i think you have to have a pretty clean record for that to be an option, if it isnt, and you cant find a way to get it all droped, go with the careless thing if you can, its just like a slap on the wrist

hey thanks everyone for the help and pms. lol, mai the reason why i'm asking here instead of searching google is when it came down to the attorney i had for my insurance case, i got their info from google and they basically made it a long and painful 3 year wait to receive compensation, so i'm going by word of mouth now. as for attorneys, i have a consultation scheduled with jeanie mucklestone tomorrow, and had one today with fox/bowman/duarte. so far the my confidence is way up after talking to them. if you don't know f/b/d they got a friend of mine out of 5 dui's with no jail time. but who knows i may go with mucklestone. and as for not talking to the cops, i'm never doing it again. so far the only evidence against me for my reckless driving is what little info i did give them, and it turns out that info may be thrown out for two reasons. cop never read me miranda rights, and also never went back to the scene of the accident with john or i to detail/describe. also after going over the police report, he didn't even write anything till about an hour or two AFTER we had talked, so he's recalling events through memory rather than what i said. w/e the case wish me luck, i'll keep ya'll updated. btw is 2.5k a reasonable sum for an attorney dealing with this case (without going to trial yet folks thats an additional charge) it seems a bit much but from what i hear that isn't unreasonable, let me know!

i'm telling you fred would probably do it for $1000 and for sure get you off. Hw was going to do my Neg 2 for $500, but I got myself off for freeeee... LQTM! :lol:

Sorry Han, when I said google, I meant google what to do in this kind of situation and what others have done, the steps you should take...that kind of thing.

I'm sure it helps to use an attorney others have had experience with. Sounds like you have a good chance of getting this straightened out without jail time. Good luck!