How do the police know if your registration sticker is expired?
They ask you do you know that your registration is expired?Okay, seriously, most states have a tag on the license plate that indicates the month and sometimes the year that it expires. This is the last day of that month - perhaps more correctly said, the first day of the following month indicated on that little tag.Many are color specific for a particular year. The month is usually indicated also. Say green is the currently issued color for 2018 but yellow is still good if the month indicated on that tag hasn't come and gone.That works great for say Missouri plates in Missouri. Missouri plates in Iowa are perhaps a bit more difficult to determine whether they are still valid, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out. And police tend to know what a valid registration tag from a neighboring state plate looks like…the police aren't as dumb as some people think.
If a police officer wrote down the wrong information on your traffic ticket, such as writing the wrong birthday, would you still have to pay the fine?
The best approach, in my opinion, would be to go to the court, or call them and ask if they have any record of your citation. The post office doesn't always deliver mail correctly, and the courts dont always send out notices correctly. You still have to appear at the court on or before the date on the citation and you need to be able to prove that you appeared.A problem may occur if the court didn't receive a copy of the citation--even though they are supose to, they might not want to schedule an arraignment date for you, if they refuse you can talk to the DA's office and they may be willing to dismiss the case due to the court not receiving the citation. It is easier for them to do that than to try and find out what happened.If an arraigment date is set, it is often on the same day as you go in, you can tell the judge at the arraignmen that you received a notice made out to someone with your name but with a diffrent birth date, and ask that the ticket be dismissed. Don't lie but try to avoid admitting that the ticket is actually yours.In California there is a procedure for a trial by declaration, where you fill out a form and tell your side of the story on the form. I have never used it, but it gives you the opportunity to note that the ticket was to the "wrong" person because of the birth date error, without the court being able to ask any follow up questions, such as "but did you actually have an encounter with the police person"If the “trial by declaration” goes against you, you can ask for a trial before a judicial officer (judge or commissioner depending on the jurisdiction). There is a relatively short time to request this new trial so do it as soon as you received the notice of an adverse decision at the trial by declaration and either deliver it to the court clerk with a copy for the clerk to receipt and return to you or send it certified mail. A trial date will be set for a hearing, and the police person will have to come in, There is a possibility that the ticket issuer may not appear either order to avoid embarrassment or for some other reason in which case the judicial officer will almost always dismiss the case for want of prosecution.If you go trial and admit that the ticket was in fact handed to you, the birth date wouldn't be enough to get it dismissed. However, an error in citing the offence -- wrong code section -- clearly would, and a wrong location likely would.