Here’s a story that popped up a while back that I didn’t get the chance to cover at the time, but it seems appropriate today. It came up in a discussion regarding cops who insist that you can’t videotape their abuses.
The deal is that, in a case that worked its way (slowly) to the Ohio Supreme Court, the following things happened:
#1 - A guy had the temerity to contest his speeding ticket. This, as we’ve covered before, angers prosecutors and judges who feel that anyone not pleading guilty is “wasting their time” and want to come up with any way to punish the impudent peon for doing so.
#2 - The radar gun evidence was thrown out of court. The reason? The cop couldn’t produce documentation to prove he was certified to operate the radar gun correctly.
#3 - At this point, the cop claimed that nevermind the radar gun, he was “trained to estimate speeds” during the police academy training and thus was able to “estimate” that the defendant was moving at least 70 mph (in a 60mph limit zone).
#4 - the Ohio Supreme Court bought this hook, line, and sinker.
The training the court refers to is given by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, and its rigor is questionable. To pass the test, an officer has to determine the speed of a moving vehicle by watching cars go by and estimating their speeds. Guess the speed to within five miles per hour of the radar-gun-detected speed and you get a certificate and are officially “trained.”
As near as I can tell, this opens the door for the Badged Highwaymen of Ohio to “estimate” anyone’s speed they want, write the ticket, and give the citizen zero ability to contest their ticket later (since the “officer’s word is good enough”, nevermind the “innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” standard normally employed in criminal cases). Can someone help me figure this one out?
It looks like the legislature is getting involved (in a good way). That’s the good news. The court’s ruling is supremely aggravating, but… on the merits, I’m not sure.
A police officer’s testimony is, generally speaking, enough to put someone away. Just like anyone’s eyewitness testimony. It depends on the circumstances surrounding it. So I’m not sure I disagree with the notion that a police officer’s testimony should not be enough ever (when it comes to traffic violations), however tempting it might be to agree with that.
But when a cop, or some other witness testifies, and they are impeachable, that’s a different matter. And in this case, his “visual estimate” disagreed with the (uncertified) radar gun. That ought to be enough to call his testimony into question. As should what the NASA dude had to say.
I would add that despite all of this, I still think that some tickets are worth contesting. As I’ve mentioned before, I had a lawyer get me off in glorious fashion and, when I was in that airport smoking lounge, I talked to another guy who had the same thing. It happens, and even in this case, the guy got a better ticket than he would have if he’d just plead guilty.
It depends on a multitude of factors. I remember during a Phillippi cattle-call, the judge said “If you want to take your chance that the officer won’t show up, feel free. However, don’t you dare make me assemble a jury unless you have prepared a defense, because [I can’t remember his precise wording, but it was unpleasant].”
On the other hand, I’ve heard that one of the things my lawyer does is walk to the jurisdiction with ten violations in hand and say “Jury trials for all” and they throw out a few tickets in order for him to agree to a bench trial for the rest. When the lawyer came out of chambers (I was waiting outside), he told me I had gotten the white bean and, motioning a priestly cross with his hands, he said “Go forth, and sin no more.”
Comment by trumwill — July 19, 2011 @ 11:47 pm
One thing most people don’t know about speeding laws is that it is not a violation to exceed the speed limit, at least in Texas. The way the statute is written, one must operate the vehicle at a “reasonable and prudent” speed, and the speed limit is prima facie evidence of what is reasonable and prudent. So if you’re going 70 in a 60, and everyone else is going 70 in a 60, then you have a pretty solid defense that it would not be “reasonable and prudent” to drive ten miles slower than the speed of traffic, as you would be more likely to cause an accident that way.
As for your original question, I tend to agree with you.
Comment by Kevin — July 20, 2011 @ 8:43 am
Will, I’ve heard a lot of stories of traffic-court lawyers bundling cases on the docket to engage in a sort of “collective bargaining” for all of them, with the implicit threat of the court taking far more time (and expense) than they’d make back by going through all the motions of trials and empaneling juries for every single case.
To my mind, this in itself is an indication that the traffic court system has long ago ceased to be about public safety and legal conduct, and is much more about a randomized, haphazard revenue stream on the backs of whoever the cop felt like ripping off to meet quota.
Comment by web — July 20, 2011 @ 11:04 am