A Superior Court judge in California ruled that evidence supplied by red light cameras to issue traffic citations is inadmissible as hearsay under the Constitution.As reported by The Truth About Cars, the San Diego judge ruled against evidence of traffic violations generated by American Traffic Solutions (ATS), one of the nations largest providers of traffic enforcement cameras.
The judge determined that the images evidence generated by these digital traffic cameras violated the accused rights to confront the evidence of the accuser, and cited the Supreme Court’s Melendez-Diaz decision as precedent. The defendant has a right to confront his accuser, under the Confrontation Clause of the 6th Amendment of the US Constitution.
In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court determined that technical and forensic evidence must be supported by expert testimony to be cross-examined and confronted by the defense.
In these cases with the photographic and documentary evidence provided by ATS, the defendant had no such opportunity. In these traffic ticket cases challenged into the courts, an officer merely recited what was on the documents. There was no opportunity to directly challenge how the documents where created, the calibration and maintenance of the cameras, or how they functioned.
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