The Maryland Court of Appeals ruled on January 24 that officers who received speed camera tickets while driving police cars on duty must pay the $40 fine. Montgomery County Officers Dean Cates, Randy Kucsan, Bill Tran, and Dana Way protested after their department reissued citations in their names in 2008. They were found guilty in district court, but a circuit court judge dismissed the charges on the grounds that the officers were denied their due process rights. The state appealed, hoping the court would rule that police officers are not entitled to due process before liability for a speed camera ticket is transferred.
Under county policy, speed camera tickets are re-issued to the policemen, paramedics and firemen who were behind the wheel of police cars, ambulances and fire trucks if the emergency lights on the vehicles were not visibly activated in the photograph. The officers complained that their sergeant would ask them weeks or months after an alleged offense to explain why they were speeding.
“How are they going to recall that it wasn’t because they were speeding to stop a kid from running in the street, chasing a ball; or a person in a wheelchair was spinning,” the officers’ attorney argued in court. “That’s exactly our argument, that there are many, many reasons for an officer to speed that are lawful and justified…. How are they going to remember what they did yesterday? I mean, an officer’s in his car for eight hours, ten hours. And if they’re accelerating for a lawful purpose, and it’s not on the [activity log], or they can’t remember, then they get the ticket. We’re saying the whole process violates their due process.”
The appellate court turned to a state law that only gives emergency vehicles the ability to run red lights and speed while using a siren. It also pointed out the maximum delay in the cases at hand was one month.
“While an inordinate delay might deprive an officer of due process, the officers have failed to show any significant delay in receiving notice,” Judge Sally D. Adkins wrote for the court. “The officers received notice of the charges at least as early as when they were interviewed by the department, well before the citations were reissued in their names… As the county argued at trial, the officers were no worse off than a regular citizen who could be issued a citation months after the violation date.”
Because the officers were not deprived of their due process rights more than anyone else, the full court upheld Montgomery County’s procedure for assigning tickets to police officers and vacated the circuit court decision.
“Due process does not require strict adherence to a statute by an administrative agency where such adherence would provide no additional guarantees of fairness, notice, or an opportunity to be heard,” Adkins wrote.
A copy of the decision is available in a 60k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: Maryland v. Cates (Court of Appeals, State of Maryland, 1/24/2011)
[Courtesy:Thenewspaper.com]
Those are the examples they use? Really? A kid running in the street after a ball? A guy in a wheelchair? Those are so local, I don’t see how you’d be ‘speeding’ to get up to a kid running in the street. Wouldn’t you slow down so you don’t hit the kid?
At some point you start to wonder if there’s anything some police won’t do to not have to let go of their special privilege outside the law.
About time to start demonstrating to police that they are not above the law.
A lot of Super-Citizens would disagree with that statement.
It really doesn’t take much effort to flip the strobes on real quick if you realize that you’re not going to make a light. Driving the extra two blocks with the disco going and then ducking into an alley real quick so that the civilians around don’t know you just busted a light for no reason is kind of a PITA, especially if it takes you out of your way, but that’s what you get for not paying attention. It’s a small price to pay to avoid being hassled by the admin weenies.
Yeah, the thought that you super-citizens in blue might actually have to follow the same traffic laws that regular folks must obey really grates on you guys wearing blue.
What difference does it make if cross traffic is inconvenienced or worse, gets in an accident, just so long as you can “flip the strobes on real quick” and run a red light “for no reason”.
You’re obviously more concerned about getting “hassled by the admin weenies” than you are about obeying traffic laws. That speaks volumes about how you really feel about the law. Just because you wear a badge and a gun doesn’t give you the right to “bust” a light “for no reason” but you seem to think it’s a perk of the job.
I don’t know what the law is where you are, but in this state police are not allowed to violate traffic laws unless it’s an emergency run. And no, going to get lunch at Panera or hurrying back to the shop because your supervisor wants you is not an emergency.
I realize that in the academy they taught you that “I’m a police officer in the performance of my duty” is an omnibus excuse to do whatever you want to do, that you must always assert command presence to let non-cops know just who is in charge.
Sorry but you don’t get deferential treatment from me. Why should I be deferential to a public employee? He should be deferential to me, his boss.
Cop brains must be different than those of normal people. They don’t understand that their casual violation of the law, their repeated demonstration that they believe themselves to have special rights and privileges, promotes disrespect for the law and for those who ostensibly enforce it.
Repeat after me: I’m a public employee and I work for the public’s benefit. It’s my job to treat everyone with respect whether they treat me with respect or not.
Of course the response regular folks will get when they say that cops work for them is, “No, I work for the chief of police”.
Kind of makes a mockery out of “serve and protect”, doesn’t it, when they serve themselves and protect their own interests. Oh, and send you a bill for “emergency services” even though you didn’t use them.
In a real job (you know, the kind where you can’t retire on a 90% pension after just 20 years and then bump it up with a ginned up disability claim) you have to treat your boss with respect even if he’s a jerk to you. Well, your boss is the public.
Don’t like your boss? Get another job.
Those are the examples they use? Really? A kid running in the street after a ball? A guy in a wheelchair? Those are so local, I don’t see how you’d be ‘speeding’ to get up to a kid running in the street. Wouldn’t you slow down so you don’t hit the kid?
My thoughts exactly, along with what kind of mroon did they hire for a lawyer that eh couldn’t come up with somethign better than that.
Additionally, the argument that they couldn’t be expected to remember the very good and legitimate reasons that they all had for speeding without lights and sirens seems to suggest that they do it on a regular basis, daily even. That’s a lot of children and paraplegics that they are speeding towards so they can get there before somebody else runs them down.
SO the next time I see a cop doing 65 in a 45 I assume he is speeding to stop some kid from chasing a ball in the street?
Cough up the dough, it goes towards new police cars.
The only thing that would make this better would be a Nelson Muntz gif.
Longview, WA is in their “trial” period for cameras. On a stretch of Ocean Beach Highway, more an arterial then a highway, people were shocked at the handful of speeders going twice the speed limit and more. Yep, the people living along this stretch reported many instances almost daily of police cars running that speed without lights or siren.
The city administration want that money and have made it clear they will get it regardless of the staggering stupidity of what they are doing.