I can explain why my son was not wearing his seat belt. Will the judge believe me?

Jan

Nope. No excuse for your child not to be in a seat belt. The judge will not believe you.

Sweetharttt

You do not have a chance. Train your children better.

wizjp

Nope

laughter_every_day

If you want to present a defense to the charge, plead not guilty and set a trial. If you want to know if your version is a defense, read the statute that you are alleged to have violated. Not just the title. Read the whole statute. The number of the statute is on the ticket and you can see it at the local law library or at findlaw.com or via a local website. In all likelihood, you have no defense but I have no way of knowing that without reading the statute and that requires knowing what state or country is applicable.

Sandy

It depends on the judge. But they may say that you, as the driver, need to ensure that seat belt laws are being followed at all times while you are driving. If you see your son take off his seat belt prematurely, pull off the road until he fastens it back up. Done enough times, he will learn to leave it on until you park and turn the engine off.

BThomas

worth a shot.

Lastdue

I don't know what state you are in but most seat belt fines around here are cheap with no court costs and not worth fighting as a general rule. I can't speak for where you are.
Yes I think you can beat this but I don't think you have your sequence of events correct.
Since it seems the officer was unable to tell if the child was wearing his seat belt until he opened the door, then it sounds like the child unbuckled his belt once you pulled over and put the car in park, perhaps thinking that you were in fact at your destination. While at a traffic stop the child would most likely be safer still strapped in, I aware of no law that says that children have to be wearing seat belts in a parked vehicle.
As to the officer opening the door to your vehicle during a routine traffic stop, I am going to defer that to others that may be able to give a more informed answer on the legalities of this. My gut feeling is that unless this was some kind of felony stop or the officer was able to see the child through the window (plain sight rule) that opening your door to determine if the child was strapped in was probably improper. Without knowing the particulars of the stop it's impossible to say. Where you pulled over for a seatbelt violation or something else? If that was the reason for the stop then, it was most likely obvious to the officer that he was not wearing a seat belt while the vehicle was in motion.
Were the actions of your child enough to give the officer reason to believe that the child might be in some sort of danger? This would give him every reason to open your door, with or without permission.
I wish I knew all the facts to give you a better answer but I think that the child was strapped in until the car came to a complete stop is your best defense given the facts presented here.

Good luck and hope this helps.

teaganchopard

possibly.
if you have a good lawyer, he/she can elaborate on that so that you won't be facing charges.
good luck.

mteresara

yeah you got a chance to learn how messed up it can be.will the judge believe you maybe but it s not a question of that will the officer show to fight it.A lot of times the magistrate side with states sworn witness. roll the dice c what happens.

Richard K

It might be important for the judge to know whether your little boy was sitting beside you ... and, therefore in plain view ... or sitting in a seat behind you.

It might work in your favor that the officer opened your car door. I believe this runs contrary to polce training.

With luck, you might get off on a technicality.

Good luck !

starfish

I think you have a chance. Most judges (and people) have enough experience with children to know that they don't always do what they're told and when you're driving, you're watching the road and you can't look back every 5 seconds to make sure the kids haven't taken off their seatbelts. Since it sounds like you don't have a history of traffic violations, I think there's a good chance you could get off with a warning. Just respectfully explain to the judge what happened and explain what you plan to do to make sure it doesn't happen again. If nothing else, I bet this experience will make your son never undo his seatbelt prematurely again!

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