It is not clear which side you are on, and what you are hoping for - a conviction or not guilty.

I am sorry if it is not what you want.

Generally, he sounds like an excellent defense attorney. Get his business card and save it for if you ever get in trouble. I would be interestd to know who it is. Maybe you could email me privately.

If I have to guess from this short description, I would say that the defendant will be found NOT guilty on the hit and run charge, and probably on the reckless driving charge (but that is not so clear from your short description).

A criminal conviction is a very, very serious thing and in our system we don't want this to happen lightly. We require the prosecutor to follow the rules precisely. We don't want it to be easy to get a criminal conviction.

This is especially true in traffic cases, because accidents DO happen all the time. When should it be made so serious that it is a criminal issue, not just a civil lawsuit for damages?

Therefore, the prosecutors are supposed to KNOW exactly what they have to prove. It is not a mystery. They should have a checklist. They do the same kinds of cases over and over and over. It might seem unfair to some people. But the prosecutors should be more organized. They can do that easily.

However, there MIGHT be enough evidence in the case for the judge to find an INFERENCE that the damage was more than $1000. He might say that the evidence did not explicitly put a number on it, but that there was sufficent evidence to INFER that the damage was greater than $1,000. That is the evidence might show that it was far greater than $1,000 even if an exact number was not identified. Unlikely, but possible.

About the reckless, I am not sure why no driver in court would necessarily be used to dismiss that charge. Again, the question would be whether there was enough OTHER evidence or other witnesses to prove reckless driving. While it is a good question, I think there is a large chance that there could be OTHER evidence showing that the driver was reckless. Of course, the prosecutor must prove that the defendant was actually driving.

Don't forget of course that any injured party canalso sue in a civil lawsuit for money.