California Appellate Court Confirms Fragility of Red Light Camera Cases – You Have to Fight to Win

Cal­i­for­nia Appel­late Court Slams Sacra­mento Red Light Cam­era Pro­gram
Appel­late court rules Sacra­mento County, Cal­i­for­nia red light cam­era
pro­gram does not pro­duce suf­fi­cient evi­dence to con­vict dri­vers.
A deci­sion issued last month by the Appel­late Divi­sion of the
Supe­rior Court in Sacra­mento County, Cal­i­for­nia would inval­i­date
at least eighty per­cent of red light cam­era tick­ets in Sacra­mento
if dri­vers were to bring their case to court and con­test their
cita­tions. A three judge panel found the photo sys­tem did not
gen­er­ate evi­dence suf­fi­cient to con­vict local motorist David Gra­ham,
38, of run­ning a red light.
“Some­times you can fight city hall,” said Gra­ham. “Now those bozos
will have to give me back every penny of the $371 they bilked me
for the ticket.”
On March 2, 2008, Graham’s 1995 Oldsmo­bile was pho­tographed by a
red light cam­era at the inter­sec­tion of Power Inn Road and Fol­som
Boule­vard. How­ever, unlike most newer pro­grams in Cal­i­for­nia, the
angle of the red light cam­era pho­tographs in Sacra­mento County do not
actu­ally show the sig­nal light in the pho­to­graph itself. Instead,
a data box super­im­posed on the cita­tion photo shows the let­ter “R”
which indi­cates that the sig­nal was red, accord­ing to Affil­i­ated
Com­puter Ser­vices (ACS), the for-profit com­pany that oper­ates the
pro­gram. That was not suf­fi­cient evi­dence for the appel­late court.
“With­out pho­tographs show­ing appel­lant com­mit­ting the vio­la­tion,
the sys­tem must be proven reli­able beyond a rea­son­able doubt in
order for the peo­ple to meet their bur­den of proof,” Pre­sid­ing
Judge Maryanne G. Gilliard wrote.
The police employee who tes­ti­fied in Graham’s case, Offi­cer Holt,
said that he had exam­ined logs that showed an ACS tech­ni­cian
had main­tained the cam­era prop­erly and that there were no
mal­func­tions. Gra­ham used the Cal­i­for­nia Rules of Evi­dence to
chal­lenge this claim as hearsay.
“We have no way of know­ing what the tech­ni­cian did to reach these
con­clu­sions, because that tech­ni­cian is not in court, and Offi­cer
Holt admits to hav­ing no direct, per­sonal knowl­edge of what the
tech­ni­cian did,” Gra­ham wrote in his brief to the court.
The court noted that the first pho­to­graph on Graham’s cita­tion
showed his Oldsmo­bile behind the limit line with cross traf­fic
fac­ing a red — not a green — light.
“Given the evi­dence adduced at appellant’s trial, this panel finds
that a ratio­nal trier of fact could not rea­son­ably find, beyond a
rea­son­able doubt, that the light con­trol­ling appellant’s entry into
the inter­sec­tion was red when he first crossed the limit line,”
Judge con­cluded “There­fore, we find that sub­stan­tial evi­dence does
not sup­port appellant’s con­vic­tion. The con­vic­tion is reversed with
direc­tions to dis­miss the com­plaint.”
Gra­ham is now ask­ing the court to pub­lish his case so that it will
have prece­den­tial value. Cal­i­for­nia courts have pro­tected red light
cam­era pro­grams in the past by hold­ing sim­i­lar deci­sions unpub­lished
to pre­vent mass refunds from pro­grams oper­at­ing in ways that vio­late
Cal­i­for­nia law.
A copy of the deci­sion is avail­able in a 150k PDF file at the source
link below.
Source: Cal­i­for­nia v. Gra­ham (Cal­i­for­nia Supe­rior Court, Appel­late
Divi­sion, 2/20/2009)
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/27/2715.asp

Share

About Marc MkKoy

Enemy of the State, iconoclast, critical thinker. Non-citizen and natural man who prefers to not engage in the institutional insanity used to perpetuate an adopted reality of material hedonism in exchange for personal responsibility and personal investment in life. I prefer a path of peaceful resistance, but succumbing to the imperfect, flawed nature of my physical self I must entertain the possibility of violence should my life or safety be threatened by those who believe they possess some moral, political, or other right to subject me to their will. May peace prevail, but those who choose violence welcome the same.
Bookmark the permalink.