People v. Toft (355 Ill. App. 3d 1102, 2005)

PRESIDING JUSTICE SLATER

delivered the opinion of the court:

Defendant Stuart Toft was convicted after a jury trial of disobeying a traffic signal. 625 ILCS 5/11 — 306 (West 2002). The defendant was fined $150 plus costs, and he now appeals. We affirm.

Facts

The record indicates that the defendant was issued a traffic citation for disobeying a red light in Peoria County, Illinois, on September 15, 2002. Defendant requested a jury trial and was assigned a trial date of December 10, 2002. Defendant appeared on that date and the case was continued to April 1, 2003. Defendant also states in his brief that the trial court allowed, over the State’s objection, defendant’s motion to engage in limited discovery. There is nothing in the record concerning this ruling.

Defendant next appeared in court on April 1, 2003, when, according to his brief, he had to wait 2 V2 hours for his case to be called while the judge left the courtroom twice, creating a “circus atmosphere.” According to defendant, his case was called by a representative of the State while the judge was absent. The defendant then tendered his discovery documents to the prosecutor, who refused to accept them. None of defendant’s claims are supported by anything contained in the record. Defendant’s case was continued to July 1, 2003.

The record does show that the circuit clerk received two documents from defendant on June 27, 2003: a “request to produce” seeking any video or audio tape of the traffic stop and other documents, including budget projections by the City of Peoria for 2002-03; and a set of interrogatories primarily seeking information about video recording devices in police patrol vehicles. These documents were accompanied by defendant’s written request to reset the July 1 status hearing to a later date.

According to the defendant, when he appeared in court on July 1, 2003, he again had to wait 21l