Legal Question in Traffic Law in California

So a few weeks ago, in Pacific Beach in California, I was stopped for J-walking. I was going to cross the street, at the cross walk, and was waiting for the left turn green arrow to finish before crossing the street. I knew I was going to be able to walk after the left turn arrow because its an intersection I cross often, so I stepped into the crosswalk a second or before the left turn yellow finished. Two steps into the crosswalk and it was green and I walked across only to be met by two officers who called me over. They asked for my ID and I asked them what the problem was and they said J-walking. I told him the light looked pretty green to me and he said it wasn't when I first stepped into the crosswalk. If you aren't familiar with Pacific Beach it is filled with a lot of college students (I am in my mid 20's) and there are ALOT of j-walking occurring every night. In the time I was detained I saw at least 15 incidents in which the officers did not stop the pedestrians. Anyways, after talking for awhile they told me to sign the ticket and I said I wanted to read it first. I began reading the ticket, and one of the officers told me just to sign it. I said I wasn't going to sign something without reading it, and they told me to just sign it again. I asked them to just give me a minute to read it over, and they said I was resisting arrest and put me in handcuffs. I never signed the ticket. Long story short, they took me over to a group of officers where I was questioned again, had the same responses, and the main officer there said he will just take me to the 'detox center' where I would be detained for 4 hours then released. The officer that arrested me said 'no, take him to jail.' The other officer said that taking me to the detox center would be fine because 'I was fine' and the other officer proceeded to tell him "no he's going to jail." Long story short (for real this time), I sat handcuffed in the back of the van from 10:30 til 1:30 as the van collected a few more detainees and we headed downtown where I sat at the detox center for 4 hours then took a cab home. I got a notice in the mail today for the 21456B violation. Is this possible if I never signed the ticket? Also, can I fight this in anyway? How should I approach this? The officer singled me out, and I feel like he knew he could be in the wrong so he just wanted to take me to jail. Also, how could he arrest me for 'resisting arrest' if I was just trying to read the ticket before signing it? He put me in handcuffs for no apparent reason (other than 'resisting arrest'?) and never read me my rights or anything. Help please!! Thank you in advance!!


Asked on 3/04/13, 9:06 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Robert Driessen The Law Offices of Robert L. Driessen

The best solution is to hire an attorney to take care of this.

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Answered on 3/10/13, 8:36 pm


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