Officer estimates enough for speeding convictions

AP ^ | 6/2/10 | Staff

[kbennkc]

Thanks again. I am struggling and have such a memory problem,I can hide my own Easter eggs.

[Xenalyte]

BINGO! You got it on that one. (I heard the Easter-egg joke at Weight Watchers today ... weird that it’d show up again!)

[Richard Kimball]

[Paladin2]

Aren’t you on the run? No wonder you exceed 150 mph.

[FroedrickVonFreepenstein]

I can tell you from personal experience as a LEO that you can estimate a vehicle's speed within +/- 2 to 3 MPH after a year of traffic duty.

B*ll Sh*t

[TChris]

And you think that's ok?

Sure. Why shouldn't it be?

Nobody said the officer's estimate is unimpeachable, or iron-clad. It simply meets the intial burden of proof for a prima facie case. If you, as a defendant, have better evidence to the contrary, you'll probably beat him.

I'm surprised this needed a court ruling, frankly. I thought this was already the case pretty much everywhere.

How do you suppose speeding was prosecuted before radar guns were invented? Radar is better evidence, but certainly not the only kind.

Officer testimony is used in court all the time, for all sorts of offences. Why should speeding tickets be any different?

[TChris]

B*ll Sh*t

Thanks for your thoughtful and intelligent reply.

It's still a fact, whether you like it or not.

[ziravan]

The problem here isn’t how accurate a LEO could be in estimating speed, but the potential for abuse in allowing officers to “make their case” solely on such grounds.

The problem here is potential for abuse. I’m not as worried about the 25% that can’t WAG a car’s speed as I am the 5% that would abuse the discretion to do so.

Gov’t - and its agents - must be kept in check. That is the essence of “limited government”.

[Oldpuppymax]

Not TOO much of a disgrace, is it! I wonder if they can issue parking tickets to people who LOOK as though they might have parked illegally a while back?

[Oldpuppymax]

TRANSLATION: Ohio has invented a whole new way to TAX!!!

[kbennkc]

I ain't been to weight watchers, first you call me a no good typer, an now I am suspected of being fat and stealing jokes from fat camp! AHHH!

[Xenalyte]

Okay, now I know you’re havin’ fun with me. :)

[TChris]

...the potential for abuse in allowing officers to “make their case” solely on such grounds.

That's certainly possible, but it would also catch up to the officer and eventually wreck his career. After you get smacked hard in court a few times with evidence that shows you're way off, your professional opinions and estimates soon don't mean much any more. When that happens, your usefulness as a LEO is greatly diminished.

The D/A's office really doesn't like to lose cases because of jerk cops, so those problems usually get sorted out over time.

[ziravan]

I posted, for a limited time, on my home page the text of the petition I submitted to toss a speeding ticket in 2003.

I might well have been speeding, but, it was outside the jurisdiction of the officer that wrote the ticket by about 3 miles, he lied about the mile marker he put down on the ticket (which indicated the ticket occurred 5 miles back, in his town), and speeding or not, I was not breaking the law as the law in Texas specifically states that unsafe driving is the violation and operating a vehicle safely above a posted speed is NOT necessarily a violation of the law.

The city attorney postponed my case and never brought it back up (2 yr statute of limitations). In reality, despite everything else I said, his speed trap sign was illegally posted and he simply didn’t want to risk having to revisit 2 yrs worth of tickets.

[TankerKC]

Nobody said the officer's estimate is unimpeachable, or iron-clad. It simply meets the intial burden of proof for a prima facie case. If you, as a defendant, have better evidence to the contrary, you'll probably beat him.

In my opinion, you were speeding. No I wasn't.

Now what?

[ziravan]

From the petition I just mentioned:

"The State has purposely devised a law that criminalizes the safe and prudent actions of a significant plurality of its citizens. As a result, its agents can or must only discriminately or randomly enforce the statute. Such a scheme breaches Equal Protection precisely because, under this scheme, prosecution of the law is not dependent upon guilt, but upon the discretional acts of agents of the State. This ability and necessity to discriminate, by any and whatever standard, deprives the population as a whole, and 27.2% of the population particularly, of Equal Protection under the Law."

[TankerKC]

When that happens, your usefulness as a LEO is greatly diminished.

That's a real knee slapper.

[TChris]

In my opinion, you were speeding. No I wasn't.

Now what?

You'll probably lose.

But how is that any different from this:

"I had you on radar at 15 MPH over the limit."

"You're wrong."

???

The only difference is radar vs. estimate. The officer's testimony is still involved, as is yours. If he's a liar/jerk then he will be with or without a radar.

Like I said, this really isn't much of a change, if any.

[TChris]

That's a real knee slapper.

It's a fact. I've known a few officers who aren't any more precisely because of that problem. They had no credibility left.

[JewishRighter]

Wow! That virtually means there is no defense to speeding tickets. With all due respect LEO’s can testify any time that they thought the guy was speeding and its a done deal. The lone exception would be a cross examination which significantly undermines the officer’s credibility, but that’s not so easy to do.