What would the Founding Fathers do?
California Court of Appeal Throws Out Red Light Camera Ticket
TheNewspaper.com
2/13/2012
California Court of Appeal overturns red light camera ticket evidence as hearsay.
Red light cameras are coming under increasing legal fire in the Golden State. On Friday, California's second-highest court published a ruling that struck down red light camera evidence as insufficient to convict a motorist. On June 3, 2009, a camera belonging to the Australian firm Redflex Traffic Systems accused Annette Borzakian of entering the Beverly Hills intersection of Beverly Drive and Wilshire Boulevard 0.28 seconds after the light hand turned red.
Borzakian, a former deputy public defender, decided to fight the citation. During her January 2010 trial, Officer Mike Butkus provided the standard testimony that introduces Redflex evidence in all jurisdictions. Commissioner Carol J. Hallowitz ignored Borzakian's objections, admitted the evidence and found Borzakian guilty, imposing a $435 fine plus a twelve-hour traffic school. Borzakian immediately appealed, citing the US Supreme Court case Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, which the traffic camera industry has feared since it was decided in 2009.
That case clarified that the Constitution's Confrontation Clause gave defendants the right to question the actual technicians responsible for analyzing forensic evidence. Here, Officer Butkus played no role in the operation or maintenance of the red light camera system. He merely read the sheet of paper that Redflex handed him. Borzakian argued that this made the photo ticketing evidence inadmissible hearsay. The superior court's appellate division insisted Melendez-Diaz did not apply.
"The people have never been required to have Redflex employees such as the custodian of records or the field service technicians present in court in order for the people's exhibits to be admissible," the three-judge appellate panel found. "Officer Butkus is perfectly capable of authenticating the documents and laying the necessary foundation for their admissibility and in the court's opinion had done both in this matter. It was explained to [Borzakian] that she could have filed a discovery motion or issued her own subpoenas, as many motorists do, had she cared to do so."
The three-judge Court of Appeal panel did not agree. Instead, it sided with the Orange County Superior Court's Khaled decision (view case). State law allows the use of red light camera evidence, but it does so only if certain standards are met. Among these is that the prosecution must establish the yellow light duration at the intersection meets the minimum state standards. Here, Officer Butkus concluded the light had been yellow for 3.15 seconds and that this was sufficient.
"Even assuming a 3.15 second interval meets the mandatory minimum yellow light interval as mandated by the legislature, according to Officer Butkus's testimony then, he relied upon text typed across the top of two photos, stating 'Amber: 3.15,'" Justice Fred Woods wrote for the Court of Appeal. "Accordingly, where the evidence was being presented to show the duration of the yellow traffic signal met the minimum interval mandated by the legislature -- measured to the hundredth of a second -- the record does not support the conclusion Officer Butkus was otherwise qualified to state that the representation was accurate."
The three-judge panel did not find credible the argument that the red light camera photographs and maintenance logs were merely routine governmental business records that did not require authentication. The court noted that the records were created by Redflex, not the government.
"Without the proper testimony, the maintenance logs (and therefore the photographs with text typed across the top) were not properly admitted," Justice Woods concluded. "Without these documents, as in Khaled, there is a total lack of evidence to support the Vehicle Code violation in question."
The Court of Appeal reversed Borzakian's conviction in a decision originally handed down on January 26. The three-judge panel on Friday decided that the decision should hold precedential value and ordered it to be published. A copy of the decision is available in a 175k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: California v. Borzakian (Court of Appeal, State of California, 1/26/2012)
All charges dismissed against accused redlight camera shooter in Knoxville TN after a Knox County deputy sheriff confessed to the crime
US Supreme Court Upsets Speed Camera Industry
TheNewspaper.com
7/31/2009
Red light camera makers fear high court Confrontation Clause ruling will create legal challenges.
Red light camera and speed camera manufacturers fear that last month's US Supreme Court ruling in the case Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts could create legal turmoil for the industry. The National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running issued a statement yesterday warning that the ruling has armed motorists with a greater ability to challenge the basis of automated traffic citations. Speed cameras, for example, depend heavily on legal faith in a certificate that claims to confirm the total reliability of a machine's speed reading. In the Melendez-Diaz case, the high court ruled that merely producing such a certificate in court is insufficient. Defendants have the right to cross-examine any individual who claims to have certified evidence.
"Violators often object that they cannot challenge their accuser if it is a camera," Leslie Blakey, executive director of the National Campaign to Stop Red Light Running said. "This new ruling may spur more court cases and lawsuits on the basis of the right to challenge the human elements of the evidentiary chain."
Blakey is principal of the Blakey and Agnew public relations firm that five of the top photo enforcement companies -- Affiliated Computer Services (ACS), CMA Consulting, Gatso of the Netherlands, Lasercraft of the UK and Redflex of Australia -- paid to create the National Campaign to lobby on their behalf. Each of these firms could face a tremendous challenge if their methods are brought into closer scrutiny, although Blakey believes that this constitutional protections may not apply in states where photo tickets have been made "civil" violations.
Justice Antonin Scalia wrote the majority opinion in Melendez-Diaz, a 5-4 case that dealt with a laboratory analysis of drug evidence. The defendant argued that he had a right to question the lab worker who signed a piece of paper that certified the substance he had been carrying was cocaine. The majority agreed that despite the possible hassle involved in confirming each fact at trial, it is essential to the integrity of the court system that questioning of the evidence be allowed.
"The 'certificates' are functionally identical to live, in-court testimony, doing precisely what a witness does on direct examination," Scalia wrote. "Respondent and the dissent may be right that there are other ways -- and in some cases better ways -- to challenge or verify the results of a forensic test. But the Constitution guarantees one way: confrontation. We do not have license to suspend the Confrontation Clause when a preferable trial strategy is available."
Scalia further argued that the ability to confront witnesses is essential to ensuring that the potential for bias or error in scientific testing is uncovered.
"Nor is it evident that what respondent calls 'neutral scientific testing' is as neutral or as reliable as respondent suggests," Scalia wrote. "Forensic evidence is not uniquely immune from the risk of manipulation.... And because forensic scientists often are driven in their work by a need to answer a particular question related to the issues of a particular case, they sometimes face pressure to sacrifice appropriate methodology for the sake of expediency. A forensic analyst responding to a request from a law enforcement official may feel pressure -- or have an incentive -- to alter the evidence in a manner favorable to the prosecution... the prospect of confrontation will deter fraudulent analysis in the first place."
These concerns are especially apt with respect to the photo enforcement industry. In April, for example, lawmakers in France began to raise questions after learning that the private, for-profit company that operates the speed cameras, Sagem, is solely responsible for calibrating the units and certifying their accuracy. The situation is the same in the US, where companies that are in most cases paid on a per-ticket basis, are solely responsible for determining the accuracy of their own machines.
Under the ruling, it becomes the burden of the state or local authority to ensure photo enforcement company employees show up to testify in court. Failure to testify would result in the evidence being excluded and a likely acquittal.
"We're concerned about the potential impact of this ruling on photo enforcement programs across the country," Blakey said. "We don't want to see anything jeopardize the public safety benefit of automated enforcement."
A copy of the supreme court decision is available in a 350k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts (The K-Mart Cocaine Cartel Case, Supreme Court of the United States, 6/25/2009)
Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004)
COP.
2. to steal; filch. 3. to buy (narcotics). 4. cop out, a. to avoid one's responsibility, the fulfillment of a promise, etc.; renege; back out. 5. cop a plea, a. to plead guilty or confess in return for receiving a lighter sentence. b. to plead guilty to a lesser charge; plea-bargain.
—Random House Unabridged Dictionary
"Lasercraft is a member of the Public Safety Equipment PSE group of companies. Public Safety Equipment (Intl) Ltd, Registered Office, Yeadon, Leeds, England. Beijing Mag Science & Technology Development Corp, Beijing, China."
http://www.lasercraftinc.com
http://www.pse-intl.com
http://www.maggroup.org
"Redflex Group is based in South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Redflex Holdings Limited was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in January 1997. Redflex Traffic Systems Inc has contracts with more then 130 USA cities, and is the largest provider of digital red light and speed enforcement services in North America."
—Redflex.com
$500,000 Redflex invoice paid to National Australia Bank by City of Knoxville Tennessee
http://piratenews.org//redflex-invoice-bank-of-australia.jpg
"You've got all these speed cameras here. In L.A. people would say, 'Why don't you just shoot them out?'"
-Jay Leno, BBC Top Gear (crowd cheers wildly)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0XtNGuijqc
