#Law

Minneapolis, Minnesota is angry enough at being forced to refund $2.6 million in red light camera tickets that it has filed a lawsuit against the private company it hired to issue those citations. The city last month filed a lawsuit in Hennepin County Court to recover damages, but Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia yesterday asked the US District Court for the District of Minnesota to take over the case.

The city of Mukilteo, Washington filed papers Monday hoping to thwart the attempt of a traffic camera company to deny residents the chance to vote on banning automated enforcement. Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Michael T. Downes on Friday will hear arguments in the case filed by an American Traffic Solutions (ATS)-funded front group to protect the company’s ticketing contract from the fate such agreements have shared in all ten cities where the public has forced a vote to toss out the cameras. The sponsors of Mukilteo’s initiative — Nicholas Sherwood, Alex Rion and Tim Eyman — filed a more comprehensive legal brief as intervenors tearing apart the ATS-backed case.

Unlike a Texas appellate court, the Oregon Court of Appeals ruled last Wednesday that reaching one’s own driveway during a traffic stop can avoid more serious consequences. In November 2007, Officer Blood of the Cornelius Police Department attempted to stop Richard Chaves Gonzales for a traffic violation. Gonzales was just two or three blocks from home, so he did not stop until he reached his own driveway. Blood wrote Gonzales a ticket for driving on a suspended license and began searching the car without a warrant after declaring that he was going to impound the vehicle. Blood insisted that the search was valid.

Red light cameras are becoming less popular among municipal leaders in California. On Monday, the Yucaipa city council voted unanimously to cancel its photo enforcement contract with Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia. The previous week, Costa Mesa officially pulled the plug on its automated ticketing machines.

A motorist who avoids a police car is inherently suspicious, according to a ruling handed down by the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday. A three-judge panel found that even if the officer observed no illegal conduct, a traffic stop and interrogation is justified when a driver seems not to want to be around a patrol car.

Officials in Tasmania, Australia last week reluctantly admitted that some of its speed cameras produced unreliable readings. The automated ticketing machines on Tasman Bridge were found to be issuing speeding tickets to vehicles that were not speeding, forcing a refund of 440 tickets issued between June 5 and July 5. According to The Mercury, a test of the device against a handheld speed gun showed inaccurate readings.

California’s second highest court on Wednesday upheld the publication status of a key decision that called into question the legitimacy of red light camera evidence. The state Court of Appeal rejected the request of the cities of Santa Ana and Menlo Park to depublish a May appellate ruling of the Orange County Superior Court ( view the California v. Khaled decision) that found the red light camera photographs presented as evidence in court were inadmissible hearsay.

The Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday ruled that a driver cannot be pulled over for failure to signal when that conduct did not affect any other driver. The decision came down in the case of Antoinette Feaster, 37, who was stopped and arrested on August 15, 2007 around 11am. Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department Officer Travis Robinson had set up a speed trap on the median of Interstate 24 when he saw Feaster’s Chevrolet Tahoe traveling about 8 MPH below the speed limit and making a lane change without signaling. Feaster’s attorney quizzed Robinson on the stand at trial about his recollection of the incident.

American Traffic Solutions (ATS) is following the playbook from its failed attempt to defeat an anti-red light camera referendum in College Station, Texas. The company on Monday used its law firm, Stoel Rives LLC, to file a lawsuit under the name of Christine Preston, a local resident seeking to prevent Mukilteo residents from having any say in whether automated ticketing machines are deployed on their streets.

“A controversy exists between plaintiff and defendants regarding whether the subject matter of proposed Mukilteo Initiative No. 2 is within the scope of the initiative power,” the ATS law firm’s complaint stated. “Proposed Mukilteo Initiative No. 2 would improperly interfere with the exercise of a power delegated by state law to a local legislative authority.”

Wisconsin’s highest court yesterday approved police use of Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to track motorists, as long as a valid search warrant is obtained. In 2003, Madison Police Detective Mary Ricksecker attached a tracking device to the 1980 Chevy Beretta as it sat on the private driveway belonging to Michael A. Sveum, then age 35. Sveum was suspected of stalking his ex-girlfriend, Jamie Johnson based on nine hang-up calls that were placed at payphones around the city. The tracking device was eventually used to connect Sveum to the time and place of other calls.

A pair of Cuyahoga County, Ohio cities are likely to have a public vote on banning red light cameras and speed cameras in November. A sufficient number of residents in Garfield Heights and South Euclid signed a referendum petition that organizers expect to turn in this week, as early as today. Once approved, these municipalities will join Anaheim, California; Baytown and Houston, Texas; and Mukilteo, Washington in voting on the future of cameras on November 2.

Tickets are no longer being mailed based on evidence created by freeway speed cameras in the state of Arizona. After a year-long campaign against the devices, activists from the group CameraFraud.com succeeded in convincing Governor Jan Brewer (R) to end the photo enforcement contract that her predecessor, Janet Napolitano (D) signed. As a result, the cameras were remotely shut down at 12:00am today.

The New Jersey Supreme Court unanimously decided yesterday to clarify the circumstances under which a judge can suspend a driver’s license over a traffic violation. The high court previously had offered no guidance on the subject, leaving lower courts with the discretion to take away the right to drive from motorists for any reason. This happened to Laura Moran who received a 45-day suspension for a reckless driving incident that took place August 3, 2007 at 3am in Aberdeen Township.

A sheriff’s deputy in Noble County, Indiana blew a case against a man suspected of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) after he drew his gun on the motorist without probable cause. The state court of appeals on Friday tossed the felony drunk driving conviction of Daniel C. Reinhart because of the actions of Deputy Carey Coney around 3am on August 6, 2008.