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PSA on LIDAR tickets

5K views 28 replies 15 participants last post by  JRSMAIL 
#1 ·
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#4 ·
Failure to hold a hearing under Frye v. United States to determine whether LIDAR is a generally, scientifically accepted method of speed measurement. Not that LIDAR is bogus, but nobody's actually proven it's valid to the courts yet.
 
#3 ·
Sometimes reading the paper pays off.

From Today.

November 6, 2009

BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist

It was with some fanfare that the Chicago Police Department announced three years ago that all city police districts were being supplied with high-tech LIDAR speed detectors to help crack down on speeders on neighborhood streets.

What nobody has bothered to make public, however, is that for at least the past year, speeding tickets produced by Chicago police officers using LIDAR have been routinely dismissed in Cook County Traffic Court for any defendant bothering to show up to contest the case.
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It was with some fanfare that the Chicago Police Department announced three years ago that all city police districts were being supplied with high-tech LIDAR speed detectors to help crack down on speeders on neighborhood streets.
(Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)


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Weis: Chicago cops stick to LIDAR guns

The tickets are being voluntarily waived by the city's Law Department because of legal challenges to the laser technology underlying the LIDAR (light detection and ranging) equipment.

The city began taking the approach after Traffic Court judges started ruling in favor of defense attorneys who contend local prosecutors must hold a special hearing to prove the scientific basis behind LIDAR before using it as evidence.
You don't even need a lawyer

This has not kept the city from continuing to accept the guilty pleas -- and cash the checks -- from the vast majority of accused speeders who dispose of their tickets by just mailing in the fine or going to traffic school.

For those who go to court, on the other hand, it's simply a matter of waiting for their name to be called and the judge to hand them back their driver's license, no questions asked and little if any explanation given.

"This is a LIDAR case," an assistant Corporation Counsel told Judge George Scully Jr. one day last week as the next defendant's name was called. With that, Scully pulled the driver's license from the ticket to which it was stapled and returned the license to the defendant, sending her on her way.

I watched this happen again and again without fail during the past week in the courtrooms in the Daley Center basement where minor city traffic cases are heard. Defendants gratefully exited court with wallets intact, most of them clueless about what had transpired.

Occasionally, a judge would say something like "the city cannot meets its burden of proof," by way of explanation before handing over the driver's license.

Some defendants had hired the hallway lawyers who hang around Traffic Court to represent them, not realizing they were receiving the same outcome as those who didn't have a lawyer, except they had to pay the lawyer.

"Hey, I make a living off this stuff," one lawyer told me when I brought it up.

He said he deserves to continue to make money from such clients because he "invented" the defense now being used to squelch all the LIDAR cases -- by citing a Downstate appellate court opinion that was the first to call for a scientific review of the LIDAR technology.

That case actually involved a Naperville lawyer, Michael Canulli, who was driving with his family to a girls' softball tournament in Springfield nine years ago when he was ticketed on I-55 near Lincoln, where State Police had sprung a massive speed trap. Incensed by their tactics, Canulli took the case to court. Now he's cited as the basis for beating every LIDAR ticket in Chicago, which is fine by him.

The courtroom rejections have not deterred Chicago Police from continuing to use LIDAR to bring speeding cases.

"Our job is enforcement. We enforce the laws. . . . If we don't win the case in court, that doesn't stop us from enforcing the laws," said Lt. Dave Blanco, commanding officer in CPD's Traffic Section.

"We know it to be a very reliable speed measuring device," Blanco said of the hand-held LIDAR units, which have been in use here for seven or eight years.
'It'll just get thrown out'

Indeed, there seems little known basis for questioning the reliability of LIDAR. Nobody has been able to cite for me any jurisdiction where the technology has been shown deficient. But the city hasn't gotten around to putting on its own legal case, known as a Frye hearing.

A Law Department spokesman said one of the problems is that -- in the cases where it has called a defendant's bluff and agreed to a Frye hearing -- the defendant gives up rather than put up a huge legal fight over a little speeding ticket.

Not all speeding tickets written in Chicago involve LIDAR. Tickets issued based on the reading from traditional radar devices are not being routinely dismissed.

If you're wondering if this applies to you, speeding tickets issued in Chicago have three boxes to check to indicate whether police used LIDAR, radar or laser. Some experts say LIDAR and laser are the same thing.

Judge Walter Williams, supervising judge in Municipal Traffic Court, said he couldn't discuss the situation, which I think is nonsense, but he's the judge.

One Chicago Police officer told me what really gets him irritated is when he hands speeding tickets to drivers who know the score with LIDAR and they only scoff at him: "It'll just get thrown out."
 
#9 ·
True enough and, furthermore, it's getting the chance to prove it. It doesn't seem to help the City that nobody wants to pay the $2k+ to have the (pretty much hopeless) Frye hearing over a $225 ticket.

BTW, you still 711, or did you get sworn in and I missed it?
 
#8 ·
I recently recieved a ticket for 75 in a 55 on i55. Trooper claimed he had me at 82, but after asking he knocked it down for me I checked the ticket, and it does not state how he figured I was doing those speeds. He came up super fastand lit me up right away, so I do not think he was pacing me. Sadly, it is cheaper to pay the ticket than have to miss the day of work. Bastards.
 
#13 · (Edited)
where can I read about the "Frye" hearing details......I think it might be my son:lmao::lmao::lmao::lmao:
 
#15 ·
I'd love to know how this affects troppers bouncing their laser off their sideview mirrors to nab cars coming up behind them as well. I saw another one doing that today on 55
 
#21 · (Edited)
Update:

The jig is up. In a decision filed January 15 (People v. Mann), the 2nd district appellate court upheld LIDAR's admissibility as evidence of speed.

The defendant in the case, Jack Mann, was ticketed in DuPage County for speeding 80 mph in a 55 mph zone on I-88. He was convicted in a bench trial in DuPage county, after objecting to the State's use of the LIDAR reading as evidence against him, claiming the principle behind it had not yet been proven to be generally accepted in the scientific community. Circuit judge Elizabeth Sexton overruled his objection, referring to another DuPage county case (under judge Bruce Kelsey) where LIDAR had been reviewed and accepted. Mr. Mann appealed from that decision.

In his written opinion, appellate Justice McLaren referred to a 2003 Illinois appellate case, People v. Canulli, in which LIDAR evidence was found inadmissible. Justice McLaren rejected this decision, however, and referred instead to cases from Maryland and New Jersey, concluding, "In our view, these decisions are ample authority that the use of LIDAR to measure the speed of moving vehicles is based on generally accepted scientific principles. Therefore, the trial court did not err in overruling defendant's objection to the evidence."

There's no word yet from the Sun-Times, who seem to have broken the story back in November on LIDAR tickets getting tossed, but it seems very likely that the City's not going to have to fight very hard at all now to get LIDAR formally accepted in the local courts. It's fair to say the free ride is over, at least where the State's Attorney has been paying attention to the issue.
 
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