*********** SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO In re: Red Light Camera Cases CASE NO. 579275D ORDER EXCLUDING EVIDENCE Plaintiff, The People of the State of Califomia, V.John Allen, et al., Defendants. The prosecution's arguments have not persuaded the Court to change its ruling. The prosecution relies on People v. Adams (1976)59 Cal.App.3d 559 and the cases following it for the proposition that failure to follow the statute only goes to the weight of the evidence and not to its inadmissibility. As pointed out in People v. Williams (2001) 89 Cal.App.4th 85 at 100, Adams and its progeny were crafted to address anomalies or occasional errors and innocent lapses in law enforcement. They were not meant to provide a means for peace officers and their agencies to ignore clear, easy-to-apply statutory law and administrative rules, for any reason, including budget or personnel constraints. In this case, the failure of the city to operate the system as required by the legislature, combined with the contingent fee paid to Lockheed Martin goes far beyond Adams or any of the cases which follow Adams. The Court sees no difference between a contingent fee to a private corporation and a contingent fee paid to an individual. Therefore, the Court's ruling will stand. The evidence from the red light cameras will not be admitted. IT IS SO ORDERED. DATED; September 4, 2001 Ronald L. Styn Judge of the Superior Court *********** From: "Jack Dean" <JackDeanat_private> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declanat_private> Subject: Judge dismisses 290 red-light camera tickets Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 18:49:37 -0700 http://www.uniontrib.com/news/metro/20010904-1522-crime-camera.html San Diego Union-Tribune September 4, 2001 Judge dismisses 290 red-light camera tickets By Len Novarro REUTERS SAN DIEGO - A San Diego judge Tuesday threw out 290 traffic tickets issued to motorists by the city's controversial red light camera system, placing the privately operated program in jeopardy along with its millions of dollars in revenue. San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald Styn, ruling in a case that has been closely watched on both sides of a growing debate over the new technology, said that a contingency fee paid to the private operator of the city's system, Lockheed Martin IMS, made the evidence unreliable. "The evidence from the red light cameras will not be admitted," Judge Ronald Styn said in reaffirming his Aug. 15 opinion in a class-action lawsuit against Lockheed Martin. Styn's ruling came after he heard arguments from attorneys representing the motorists and by Deputy City Attorney Steven Hansen, who said he was considering an appeal. "I'm pretty adamant," Hansen said. "The judge's decision was incorrect. The judge said that there was no problem with the camera's system. The only problem ... was that a private company was operating it." [...] *********** From: "Jack Dean" <JackDeanat_private> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declanat_private> Subject: San Diego's red-light cameras ruled illegal Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 17:38:47 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal http://www.rogerhedgecock.com/flash_page/flashfaxes/current.shtml TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 4TH, 2001 NEWSRADIO AM 600 KOGO (3P-6P) SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA HOME OF THE RADIO MAYOR OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ROGER'S RED LIGHT CAMERA LAWYERS.WIN!! (judge rules Scamera citations illegal..cannot be evidence) ROGER so hyped when he hears the ruling this morning that he's already planning a party. Likely Thursday at ROGER'S On Fifth. Judge Ron Styn rules to reaffirm his previous decision that the conspiracy between the city of San Diego and Lockheed Martin is illegal, thus any evidence produced by the illegal scheme cannot be submitted in court against innocent drivers/extortion victims. IMMEDIATE RESULT is that the 290 (or is it 400) cases involved in this specific matter are dismissed. The secondary result is that we'll want ALL OTHER extortion cases dismissed.even if folks paid up without a trial. We're talking every single dime refunded to every single victim nabbed by a San Diego Scamera. Then we' re on to getting driving records returned to clean status..no points, marks..REMOVED. And then we want insurance companies to rebate any premium hikes associated with an illegal Scamera conviction. And if folks were forced to go to a traffic school.we want the city and/or Lockheed to rebate that fee as well. How all this is gonna happen will be fodder for discussion on ROGER'S radio show in the days to come. ANOTHER RESULT OF JUDGES RULING today is that communities all over America will have to re-look at their in progress or proposed Scamera projects. We're not legal but we guess that this ruling has no validity in a D.C. or Carolina court, but any judge worth salt has to consider San Diego as the cesspool of this criminal conspiracy and measure cases against our now proclaimed and validated miscarriage of justice. ROGER VOWED in May of 2000 that he'd shut down the Scameras in San Diego. Not only has that happened, but we're well on our way to ensuring that they never return as entrapment, revenue scheming, extortion, entrapment gadgets. THIS VICTORY IS SWEET .listen up on the radio today as ROGER thanks those who made it happen.but know beforehand that he is likely to give supreme credit to all those thousands of men and women who said "hell No," and took their cases to court. Took time from work, were abused too often by the court system, demanded justice and many who paid more than the price of the Scamera ticket to fight against the City/Lockheed conspiracy. This morning's verdict belongs not only to ROGER'S Red Light Lawyers, but also to the 290 (or is it 400) victims who stood up, demonstrated backbone and raised their swords against the windmill. We hope they'll join us on Thursday to rejoice!! AND BEAR IN MIND that this battle resumes on several fronts.Our class action lawsuit a work in progress. The newly filed federal RICO suit of last Thursday is just aborning. We'll need to keep at least one good eye on that "Independent" city audit of the entire Scamera fiasco. Steve Peace legislation in Sacramento will need our support (and beefing up.Dems are watering down Senator Peace's bill and it may not make it to full floor votes this session).Oh, and note please from yesterdays post on ROGER'S News, that the city of Oxnard, (home to the bogus and too much quoted Red Light Scameras are for safety insurance study) is now re-thinking its Scamera program, based on the illegal criminal conspiracy perpetrated in San Diego. That should stop Chief David and others from spouting Oxnard Report nonsense. (wonder if we can use David's handcuffs on him? Do Chiefs have handcuffs?..humm) *********** ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Sep 05 2001 - 05:43:49 PDT