Collegio Online

Issue date: 5/10/07 Section: Campus Life

Media Credit: Greg Grisolano Josh Wilson, senior in justice studies, tears up a traffic ticket in front of the police and municipal court building in Pittsburg. WIlson, who will attend University of Tulsa Law School in the fall, lost his case when he tried to represent himself in court on Wednesday.

Josh Wilson got a chance to practice his future profession - on himself.
A senior majoring in justice studies at Pittsburg State University, Wilson was so incensed about getting a traffic ticket, he decided to go to trial over the matter.
"I talked to the city prosecutor to see if I could get it thrown out," said Wilson, who plans to attend the University of Tulsa law school in the fall. "They said 'if you want to argue, take it to court."
Wilson was ticketed on March 31 for running a red light. The officer testified that while traveling south on Broadway, he saw Wilson speed up to beat the light at Fifth Street and Broadway as it was turning from yellow to red. Although Wilson was not ticketed for speeding, the officer stated in court that Wilson would have been able to stop safely had he tried.
"If I had done this, I would have pled guilty and paid the fine," Wilson said.
Once he decided to fight the ticket, Wilson met with PSU attorney Darron Farha, who also operates the legal resource center, an office that provides consultation for students.
"The thing that I thought was unique about Josh's case is he was adamant about his innocence and set on fighting it," Farha said.
Because of the prohibitive costs of hiring an attorney, Farha said he recommended that Wilson represent himself.
For his defense, Wilson argued that it was physically impossible for him to have run the red light.
"Mathematically, I proved that per the officer's testimony, I was beyond the intersection before it turned red," he said.
In his testimony, officer Travis Bowman said he thought Wilson's car was "approximately 70 feet" from the intersection. Wilson then called public works employee Troy Graham to testify that the time between a yellow and red signal is four seconds. Wilson also used a city blueprint to determine that the length of the intersection itself is 44 feet. After that, he called on fellow PSU student Keith Smeltz, who has a degree in mathematics and is pursuing his Master's in physics, to testify that he would have easily cleared the intersection had he been traveling at a speed of 20 miles per hour or more.

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