Judge wins camera ticket case; why can’t you?

Lots of people who get red light tickets have their
citations thrown out, for various reasons. Recently, a
retired judge challenged a school zone speeding ticket
based on a traffic camera photo in Longview, and won. The
question is: Why doesn’t everybody do the same thing?

Retired Cowlitz County judge Jim Warme got three
speeding tickets in 2011 issued by cameras installed in
one of two Longview school zones. He challenged one of the
tickets on various grounds, including constitutionality.
Ultimately, a visiting Clark County judge dismissed the
ticket on a technicality. He made no ruling on other
objections, including constitutional challenges.

Longview Assistant City Attorney Steve Shuman says
the judge’s ruling will not affect the city’s traffic
camera program. “We’ve made it clear at the city’s website
that citations that have been issued prior and since the
ruling are valid and so we’re waiting to hear if other
people are going to challenge based on the reasoning of
the Clark County Judge.”

Seattle defense attorney Jon Zimmerman thinks
camera ticket programs take advantage of people who might
be less sophisticated than a judge.

“I think it’s too bad if that is the city attorney’s
view,” he said. “The city finds it quite profitable to
continue issuing these citations to the driver who is not
educated about these and many drivers will just go ahead
and pay,” complained Zimmerman.

One important fact about the red light and
speeding camera program: State law does not allow the
cameras to photograph the driver for identification
purposes. So the camera captures the license plate and the
ticket is issued to the registered owner, who is the
presumed driver of the car.

As a possible remedy, anybody who gets a camera-
issued ticket has the option to sign a legal document
called a “declaration of non-responsibility,” stating
somebody else was actually driving at the time.

“And unless [by] some miraculous coincidence that
somebody else saw them go through the intersection, the
case gets dismissed because it’s their [registered
owner’s] word against nobody’s word, really,” explained
Shuman.

What if a car owner signed an affidavit declaring
he was not the driver, even if he was behind the wheel?

“In all probability, the case is going to get
thrown out. The Legislature, in its wisdom, operates on
the
assumption that people aren’t going to sign an affidavit
under oath, in effect, commit perjury just to beat a
traffic ticket,” said Shuman.

It’s a $124 traffic ticket but a ticket that does
not go on your driving record.

The future of red light cameras is debatable.
Voters in some cities have tried to do away with them by
initiative but the state Supreme Court has rejected that
strategy. Voters in Longview cast advisory ballots and
sent the City Council a split message, in support of
school zone cameras but opposing speeding cameras. The
council then abolished the three red light cameras and
kept the two school zone cameras, although another
advisory vote on the school cameras is possible.

The ruling in the retired judge’s case is not
binding. Attorney Zimmerman thinks most people don’t like
the cameras and that somebody will eventually take the
issue to the next level.

“I think what it will take is somebody with the
foresight and perhaps a little financial backing to
actually get a statewide measure before voters and I think
voters will probably vote to get ride of them,” predicted
Zimmerman.

It has been several weeks since the retired
judge’s ticket was tossed out and nobody has gone to court
in Longview and argued they should get off, too, based on
the judge’s case.

Seattle, Lynnwood, Bellevue, SeaTac and Issaquah
all use them. Redmond is among a handful of cities that
have deactivated red light cameras that issue tickets.