On Wednesday, the Hawaii Supreme Court overturned a speeding conviction because the state failed to prove that its laser speed guns were functioning properly. On September 5, 2007, Honolulu Police Officer Jeremy Franks stopped motorist Abiye Assaye, accusing him of driving 90 MPH on the H-1 freeway. Because the charge of driving 35 MPH over the limit carried the possibility of jail time, Assaye was represented by a public defender. At trial, Officer Franks gave the familiar and well-rehearsed testimony about how he had been properly trained in the use of the LTI 20-20 Ultralyte speed gun and how, in great detail, the device’s self-test had been performed. As soon as Franks concluded that his lidar gun was “functional,” Deputy Public Defender Summer M. M. Kupau objected that the state had laid no foundation establishing the accuracy or proper maintenance of the device.
The evidence showed that over the course of fifteen months, Franks used his lidar gun daily but never once had it checked or inspected by an expert. Instead, when it was not in use it was placed in the saddlebag of his motorcycle without concern for the effects of temperature and humidity on the device.
“The only maintenance that I do on it is clean the screen when it gets smudgy and change the batteries when they get weak,” Franks testified.
Citing the precedent laid down by the court of appeals in the speeding case Hawaii v. Stoa, the trial judge believed that this evidence was more than sufficient to convict Assaye. He imposed a $787 fine, a thirty-day license suspension and 36-hours of community service. The Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) agreed, but the high court found the appellate reasoning faulty in light of a 2007 drug case.
“We hold that the ICA’s decision in this case, and by implication its decision in Stoa, is obviously inconsistent with this court’s decision in [Hawaii v.] Manewa insofar as Manewa requires the prosecution to prove that the four tests conducted by Officer Franks were procedures recommended by the manufacturer for the purpose of showing that the particular laser gun was in fact operating properly on September 5, 2007,” Justice Paula A. Nakayama wrote for the majority. “Concluding that Officer Franks had tested the laser gun according to manufacturer recommended procedures would invite the same kind of assumption that this court expressly rejected as inadmissible hearsay in both Wallace and Manewa.”
The high court went further to insist that police officers must demonstrate to the court’s satisfaction that they are able to use a laser gun properly, instead of merely stating at trial that they took a four-hour course to obtain a certificate.
“Insofar as an officer’s training is concerned, we hold that the same burden of proof is applied to the issue of whether the officer is qualified by training and experience to operate the particular laser gun; namely, whether the nature and extent of an officer’s training in the operation of a laser gun meets the requirements indicated by the manufacturer,” Nakayama wrote. “Therefore, without a showing of the nature and extent of the ‘certification,’ testimony showing merely that a user is ‘certified’ to operate a laser gun through instruction given by a ‘certified’ instructor is insufficient to prove that the user is qualified by training and experience to operate the laser gun.”
Without an adequate foundation for the speed gun’s accuracy, the supreme court found the case against Assaye “devoid of any evidence” and reversed his conviction.
View the ruling in a 100k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: 
Hawaii v. Assaye (Supreme Court of Hawaii, 9/30/2009)
[courtesy thenewspaper.com]
Many radar speed timing device operators are untrained or poorly trained. Radar calculates speed by measuring the frequency shift of an invisible radio beam reflected from an object to the transmitter-receiver. Operators are often erroneously instructed the unit locks onto the lead vehicle.
The signal actually returns from the largest object within range, often a mile or more. The speed of a tractor-trailer even a great distance from a car will be measured but in all probability the car driver will be cited. The radar operator, completely unaware which object was actually scanned, will corroborate the false reading testifying he observed the car traveling faster than permitted.
To accurately calculate speed the target should be the only moving object in the radar beam, generally not the case on busy roadways. Radar devices are vulnerable to spurious signals including cellular telephones, portable two-way radio transceivers, other transmitters, power wires and signs. The angle of the object in relation to the radar source affects readings. Stationary walls create erroneous readings. Radar guns often track apartment buildings at 90-mph! Shaking a large key ring down signal of a radar device will rocket the reading off the scale.
DON’T LET YOURSELF BE SUCKED IN!!! Every now and then a court pulls one of these “victory from the jaws of defeat” stunts for some poor sap, just to keep the rest of us poor saps suckered into thinking that the system isn’t hopelessly stacked against us. BUT IT IS.
DON’T LET YOURSELF BE SUCKED IN!!! Every now and then a court pulls one of these “victory from the jaws of defeat” stunts for some poor sap, just to keep the rest of us poor saps suckered into thinking that the system isn’t hopelessly stacked against us. BUT IT IS.
@Gardiner Westbound:
That is some frightening information. BUT the last part about shaking a key ring may not be true – at least Mythbusters says it’s not…
This begs to be said.
“Book e’m Dano”
Gardiner Westbound:
It’s LIDAR, not radar. It doesn’t measure doppler shift of CW signal, but instead bounces pulses of coherent IR light off any reflective surface and measures the round-trip time. Only thing that can go “wrong” is the internal timing reference/clock is off.
A lot seems to hang on the fact that the officer testifies that he performed the ‘self test’ function on the unit – either a laser or radar unit.
I’m a EE and I see every day our equipment being returned from customers, not fully operational and most pass not only the field ‘self test’ but the incoming test as well at the repair shop.
Depending on how the BIT (Built in Test) is designed and implemented it could very well have little to do with how accurate the unit is performing.
I’d for one, love to see the exactly how these units determine calibration day after day.
LIDAR is a pretty solid technology for measurement.
http://www.optech.ca/aboutlaser.htm
The concern is that, like any application, it can get misused.
Way to go public defender!
The high court went further to insist that police officers must demonstrate to the court’s satisfaction that they are able to use a laser gun properly, instead of merely stating at trial that they took a four-hour course to obtain a certificate.
And you’ll get them to tell you the truth about this how? Remember that this is a profession that has made an art of keeping two running notebooks and is automatically the trusted party in most legal disputes.
Lidar is not an accurate technology — at least, not in the hands of the typical bozo operator. Lidar is good at measuring distance. That’s all. Guessing vehicle speeds involves taking distance readings over a given amount of time. The problem is that there’s no way to guarantee — especially at long range — that the point of measurement on the vehicle did not change between these readings. A few inches of “slip” generates a lot of MPH worth of error. How steady is the cop’s hand? Not very. At least the Brits use tripods on occasion.
Details:
http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/07/713.asp
RichardD
You do realize the pulse is travelling at the speed of light, around 1 foot per nanosecond? So, that car at 1,000 feet gets painted and the pulse arrives back at the gun in 2,000 nanoseconds, or 2 millionths of a second. I don’t care how many cups of coffee you’ve had, nothing human shakes that fast.
As to maintaining a spot on the target for accuracy, the guns shoot pulses at 130 PPS. So, given an eyeblink is 100 milliseconds, you’d have 13 pulses in the gun in the blink of an eye. That’s more than enough samples to derive distance travelled over a unit of time.
Guys, these are photons. Much trickier little devils to thwart.
Mark out West,
Read the link. The errors are documented, and even acknowledged to some extent by the UK DfT.