What is an Appeal?
An appeal is your ability to challenge your conviction of a traffic ticket. Whether you pled guilty or you were convicted after a trial, you have a right to appeal your conviction. Appealing your ticket will allow you to have a new trial and challenge the ticket again in a County Court at Law in the same county as your original ticket. At the new trial you will be able to confront the evidence, cross examine the witnesses and provide your own evidence to prove your case.
How to file forms
Your forms from Fight Your Own Ticket include the required information such as the case number, your name, and the county where your conviction occurred. You must file your forms with the court where you received your traffic ticket conviction. Typically, you may file the forms electronically, email, fax, mail, or hand deliver the forms. You should contact the court to determine their preferred or accepted methods of filing documents.
Notice of Appeal
To appeal the conviction on your traffic ticket, you must first file a Notice of Appeal. This serves as notice to the court that you will be appealing your conviction to the County Court at Law. The Notice of Appeal can be filed at the same time as the Appeal Bond and your Motion for New trial. Some courts may require you to first file a Motion for New Trial. Once that motion is denied then you can proceed with your appeal.
Appeal Bond
In addition to the Notice of Appeal you must also Appeal Bond. The bond must be in the amount of two times the amount of the fine and costs. You can pay the bond in cash or using a surety. FightYourOwnTicket.com provides you with forms for both options. The bond must be filed with the where you were originally convicted within ten days after the date the judgment was entered. If you cannot afford to pay the bond, you can request to appeal the conviction and have the bond waived. You will need to provide financial information regarding your income and expenses for the court to determine if you qualify for the waiver.
Motion for New Trial
A motion for new trial is a request to the court to give you a second trial and not an appeal of the first trial. Some courts require that you take this step before appealing your ticket. After a court denies your motion for a new trial, then you can file your appeal. A motion for a new trial must be made within five days after the conviction of your ticket. The judge then has ten days after the conviction to grant or deny the motion. If a motion for new trial is not granted before the eleventh day after the date the judgment was entered, the motion for new trial is considered denied.
Transcript Request
You may consider requesting a transcript of the trial proceedings from the court reporter or transcription service. The transcript serves as the official record of the trial and will be crucial for preparing your appeal arguments. Unfortunately, most courts that hear traffic tickets are not courts record. A court of non-record does not record hearings and there is no written record of the proceedings, testimony, admission of evidence, etc. This is not a required step to appeal your ticket, however, it can be valuable to do so if a transcript exists.