Watch the “photo cop” argument at the Minnesota Supreme Court
If you have been following the red light camera lawsuit as it works its way up through the Minnesota court system, you might be interested in watching the arguments presented at the Minnesota Supreme Court. Here’s the link to the streaming video.
The focus of the case is whether or not the red light camera ordinance, which places the burden of proof on the owner to either admit the offense or point the finger at someone else, conflicts with state uniformity law. No other state law places the burden of proof on the accused. The city attorney tries hard to focus on the argument that red light cameras help prevent accidents. (This is, however, far from proven.) But the fact remains that the red light ordinance tries to end-around the uniformity requirement of Minnesota law by presuming the owner of the car was the driver at the time the car ran the red light.
The red light ordinance is the only violation in Minnesota under which an owner can violate a criminal ordinance without the city ever proving the owner was the driver. The city gets a “rebuttable presumption,” which means the owner is presumed to be the driver unless the owner identifies the actual driver.
All in all, I would be surprised if the Minnesota Supreme Court allowed the red light ordinance to stand as-is. As a matter of clarification, there are no constitutional issues being argued at this time. The district court started–as it should have–with the state law issue, and if the Minnesota Supreme Court overturns the district court and Court of Appeals decisions, the case will go back to the district court and those constitutional issues will presumably be heard.
Related: Red light cameras headed to the Minnesota Supreme Court,Mpls. photo cop: that’s the end of that (for now),Punitive damages on review at USSC,
As a resident of Oregon, which has both red-light cameras and speed-photo-radar cameras, I’m torn.
I have concerns about red-light cameras, simply because of the default presumption of guilt. As we’ve discovered here in Beaverton, the cameras DO malfunction and CAN generate “false positives”. The legal issue in Oregon also lies in the burden of the vehicle owner to (in legalese) act as an unpaid informant in identifying the driver. My concern lies with the scenario wherein an owner is obviously not the driver, and is nonetheless compelled to make statements about who the driver is or be forced to pay the ticket; the scenario of a sold car with a title change in-process is one case that has come up in Oregon.
That said, red light cameras are not as bad as it gets. There is a special place for Photo Radar cameras, and the reason lies in implementation. Red Light Cameras (even if they don’t prevent accidents) are selected and placed based on intersections with a high incidence of accidents. In other words, there is a clear, causal, public-safety motivation in placing the cameras.
The speeding-photo-radar system operates out of a mobile truck that is parked in various locations. The locations chosen for the photo radar are NOT based on traffic accidents, but are instead chosen based on outdated zoning. Smaller roads that have evolved into arterials due to 20 years of suburban growth are still zoned as residental; the downtown bypass that is clearly market with signs as a bypass is still zoned as residental. The causal relation in photo radar seems not to be with public-safety, but with outdated speed limits that are commonly disobeyed by the flow of traffic with no harm done.
What I am impressed with is that they’ve been able to get this case to the state Supreme Court; most jurisdictions realize that these progams are both unconstitutional and huge cash cows, and chose to drop the charges when faced with a viable court challenge, rather than risk having the law overturned.
Although I don’t think it would alter your comments, I should point out that Minneapolis took the “cheap option” and purchased only one camera for each intersection. Unlike most, if not all other implementations, the Minneapolis cameras do not take a picture of the driver, only the rear of the car as it goes through the intersection.
my wife was “caught” by this camera in minneapolis, paid the ticket AND the extra fee to have it off her record (somewhere from $100-150, I think)–she swears she did not enter the intersection during a red light, yellow maybe, but not red. I doubt they will return the charges if this gets resolved.
Just so you know, the back of your ticket has a link to the photo cop company’s website. You can watch the video of your car driving through the intersection. Although it might as well be driverless, since the cameras don’t capture the driver’s face.
Also, if the Minnesota Supreme Court upholds the Court of Appeals’ ruling, your wife should be able to get her money back and her record cleaned, since the law under which she was convicted would be unenforceable.
ditto for Albuquerque. Mayor Marty Chavez is going crazy puttin these things up all over the place. Don’t get busted in ABQ, or you’ll have a +$100 ticket showing up in your mail box. The city is making sooooo much money, the State wants a piece of the pie and Mayor Marty isn’t “down wit dat”.
Maybe I’m missing something here, but I don’t see any problem with holding the car owner responsible for the violations. If they’re loaning their car to someone who breaks the law with it, then it’s upon them to either take responsibility for the violation. If they don’t want to report who was actually driving, so be it. Just pay the fine.
Because in the United States, a person may not be convicted of a crime (or moving violation, in this case) unless they are proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This is sometimes simplified to “innocent until proven guilty.” Although this standard does not appear in the Constitution so explicitly, courts have inferred it from the fifth and fourteenth amendments.The accused also has the right to remain silent.
Therefore, in a case like this, where there is no proof they were driving the car, if the accused remains silent, they should be acquitted. However, the Minneapolis ordinance goes the other way, and the accused would be convicted of running the red light–or, as you say, of owning a car that ran a red light.
As far as I am aware, you also cannot convict people of crimes committed by others, so assessing a criminal penalty because someone drove your car through a red light is unconstitutional as a violation of substantive due process.
Of course, none of these were the basis for the lower courts’ rulings, since the issue currently before the Minnesota Supreme Court is whether the “photo cop” ordinance violates the Minnesota uniformity laws, as explained in the post.
Mr. Fischer, this one’s for you…”holding the car owner responsible” for someone else’s behavior; sure, why not. I mean, if McDonalds can be liable for spilled coffee and obesity…
In fact, while we’re at it, let’s hold doctors responsible for prescription drug overdoses (after all, 1 dose doesn’t work as well as multiple doses) and parents responsible whose children have grown up to become adult felony criminals (since we apparently didn’t teach them robbing, raping and killing are wrong). Heaven forbid that the person conducting the behavior be responsible for that behavior.
By your way of thinking, if I loan my vehicle out and the driver is arrested for drunk driving, I should be found guilty right alongside for having allowed him to drive my car even if he was stone-cold sober when he took the car. I don’t think so.
Let me emphasize what Mr. Glover put quite simply; “IN-NO-CENT until PRO-VEN GUIL-TY!!”
Having retired from law enforcement after a 20+ year career, I can tell you two things: I believe red-light cameras are a good concept, a great tool and well-intentioned if public safety is the primary purpose for their use. However, it is a violation of a person’s rights to presume guilt of an action and require proof of innocence. Furthermore, a person cannot (and should not) be compelled to identify the ‘other’ driver (as is currently ‘required’ by my local red-light camera ordinance)…the burden of proof is NOT theirs to make; burden of proof is on the State.
I live in NM, and under current State law, a citation for a moving violation must be issued by an officer in uniform after having witnessed the violation. Why? So the driver can be POSITIVELY IDENTIFIED as the person responsible for the action.
Here, the government is trying to circumvent this little tidbit of a requirement by calling these red-light/speeding camera violations a Civil Nuisance, and the penalty being treated as a Civil Action. And, to make matters worse, even if I name the ‘other’ driver and the ‘other’ driver denies being the driver (or doesn’t pay the fine), I am still held responsible. That’s just wrong…tell me where my due process is then?!?
I’m all for red-light/speeding cameras; I’m just against the way they’re being used, the way violations are being handled and the way the penalty structure is set up. If you want to do something good, do it right and without circumvention. I’m sure that if a camera can be set up to take a clear picture of something as small as a license plate, another one can surely be set up to take a clear picture of the driver at the same time. At least this way, citizens’ rights may be better protected and only the truly guilty get punished.
The below document was written about three years ago. The recent Minnasota Supreme Court decision seems to support my concerns.
Stephen E. Brown
_____________________
Honorable Oregon State Senators:
Rick Metsger
Bruce Starr
Jeff Kruse
Senators: The below article was written approximately two years ago and forwarded to then Senator Bill Fisher. Not much has changed since then. Photo enforcement is still a bad idea.
I hope the forgoing information helps in your consideration of photo-enforcement issues.
Note: The issues put forth with respect to photo-red light apply to photo-speed enforcement
as well.
Stephen Brown
_________________
For those not familiar with photo-red light, it is an automatic photo system situated at tri-light signal controlled intersections as a replacement for human traffic enforcement. Photo-red light takes a picture of a person, and their vehicle, when they fail to stop for a red light. The registered owner of the vehicle, who is presumed to be the violator, is subsequently issued a citation/summons for the offense.
This concept is being considered in several Oregon communities and is being “sold” as a way to reduce traffic accidents and promote safety. Photo-red light however is primarily a revenue generating proposition with safety and accident reduction a distant second. Here are some of the problems associated with photo red-light.
1. A traffic violation, such as running a red light, is referred to as an infraction of the law..,
a lessor offense than a misdemeanor. These types of violations must be witnessed by a law enforcement officer for him or her to take action. With photo-red light the “witnessing” comes hours or days after the fact when an officer applies his or her police authority to the event by signing off on the process rather than certifying by observation and personal knowledge that
John Q. Citizen ran the red light.
2. Photo-red light assumes the driver of the vehicle is the violator and issues the citation/summons according to DMV records (which may or may not be correct). This can be a problem. For example if you lent your vehicle to a friend and that friend runs afoul of a photo-red light, you must convince a judge that it was the friend and not you that committed the violation. The burden of proof is reversed. With photo-red light you are guilty until proven innocent. Additionally, police officers have the authority to issue warnings rather than automatically issuing a citation. Photo-red light eliminates any educational discretion by the witnessing officer and mandates enforcement.
3. Photo-red light also subordinates the basic tenets of traffic management and control, or the
Three Es of traffic management They are, and in this order; Engineering, Education,
and Enforcement.
Engineering: Highway/street design and traffic movement is engineered to be as safe and free-flowing as possible.
Education: Through various means, such as high school driving programs, the public is educated on the rules of the road and traffic safety.
Enforcement: The last step in this sequence. When Engineering and Education are not effective, then Enforcement is needed to attain compliance.
When people, rather than cameras, enforce the laws there is a chain of human accountability.
Live cops tend to issue citations for those violations that truly contribute to unsafe driving.
Photo-red light is a revenue generating proposition that does little to reduce unsafe or
dangerous driving. Photo-red light is lazy law enforcement.., if not illegal.
Stephen E. Brown
Professor of Criminology/
LAPD, Retired
Roseburg, OR