By Mike Cruz, The (San Bernardino County) Sun
Posted: 02/20/2012 12:54:49 PM PST
A class-action lawsuit against Victorville and its red-light camera program alleges vehicle owners’ due-process rights were violated and seeks millions of dollars in damages.
Barstow lawyer Robert Conaway filed the lawsuit on Feb. 14 in Victorville Superior Court on behalf of his client, Michael Curran, and others who received red-light tickets in Victorville from Phoenix-based Redflex Traffic Systems, according to court records.
The suit alleges misdemeanors and infractions have always been violations that must have occurred in an officer’s presence and not making that a requirement violates the California Penal Code.
Declarations that appear in red-light camera tickets from the Redflex-Victorville program are subscribed under “information and belief,” which the lawsuit alleges is akin to hearsay, not a police officer’s personal knowledge.
“The problem here is there’s a disconnect,” Conaway said Monday by telephone. “You can’t have two standards of evidence.”
Conaway said his Curran, a Victorville resident, got a ticket after a Redflex computer signed the name of the officer, Barbara Hill, to a “Notice of Traffic Violation,” despite the fact that Hill “did not contemporaneously observe the alleged infraction in California nor on an Arizona computer screen….”
Included with the ticket was a Redflex computer-generated proof of service, signed by a Redflex computer operator, and which was likely bulk-mailed on Oct. 4, 2011, the lawsuit states.
Red-light tickets raise other issues, too, according to the suit. Photographs and videos are not authenticated by an officer’s testimony and defendants can’t confront their accuser in court, the lawsuit alleges.
Neither Victorville nor a Redflex representative returned phone calls seeking comment. The city was closed Monday for the Presidents Day holiday.
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Conaway makes a good argument. I can’t count the number of times I had to testifie to what I OBSERVED in such cases.
I think Conaway and his clients will get their justice.
To sign off on something you did not observe and assume it will fly is foolish.
This employee at Redflex is no cop. So he has no authority under California law to confirm violations of the law that he himself cannot issues citations for, if he was in fact present to see the violation.
Victoville is already broke, so are they going to issue IOU’s on this one?
Good job Bob. I hope you win, we need more lawyers like you.