Whether or not you believe you ran a red light as you were blinded by Big Brother’s dangerously blinding flash unit, you can contest your case using a strictly legal argument. Automated enforcement is clearly an illegal speed trap under current California law.
This declaration stipulates the various laws that make automated enforcement illegal and prohibits any judge from rendering a conviction in these cases. Since this argument needs no specific circumstances from the defendant’s case, none are included here.
In California, no “peace office or other person shall use a speed trap in arresting, or participating in the arrest, of any person for any alleged violation of this code…(CVC 40801).” Of course “any” violation of this code would certainly include running a red light.
Automated enforcement systems are illegal speed traps because their sensors measure the speed of your car as you cross a measured distance in the road. A speed trap is defined in 40802(a) (1) as:”A particular section of a highway measured as to distance and with boundaries marked, designated, or otherwise determined in order that the speed of a vehicle may be calculated by securing the time it takes the vehicle to travel the known distance.” So clearly, automated enforcement is an illegal speed trap.
DON’T COUNT ON JUDGES TO OBEY THE LAW AS WRITTEN: You may still be found guilty when using this dynamite argument..
Many traffic court judges, though still breathing and cashing their fat paychecks on the public teat, have been legally dead for years. Their sense of duty to the law and their love of justice has been replaced by political expediency in their warped new role as scary fine collectors for the state treasury. This inner death may also kill their conscience-driven duty to honor their judicial oath by upholding the law as written. Still, every driver who submits this argument will force the judge to either dismiss his case or continue to stink up the court with his long dead integrity and decomposing duty to justice.
For directions on how to use this document, click here.
STATEMENT OF FACTS
Defendant’s Name: William S. Burroughs
Case No.: S780824
I respectfully submit this written declaration to the Court pursuant to CVC 40902. I plead Not Guilty to the charge of violating CVC 21453(a).
I believe that my citation should be dismissed as the Red Light Camera Automated Enforcement System constitutes an illegal speed trap under 40802(a) of the Vehicle Code. This technology is used to determine a vehicle’s speed via a time-distance calculation between sets of embedded sensors in the road. This speed is then used to allegedly determine how far behind the limit line a vehicle was when then light turned red. The use of these time-distance measurements are clearly expressed in the information provided me by the City of San Diego:
- 1.47 ft. (distance traveled per second for each mile per hour) X speed of your vehicle = DPS (distance per second)
- DPS X R (elapsed red time at the beginning of the violation) = distance behind stop bar when light turned red.”
CVC 40801 states: No peace office or other person shall use a speed trap in arresting, or participating in the arrest, of any person for any alleged violation of this code nor shall any speed trap be used in securing evidence as to the speed of any vehicle for the purpose of an arrest or prosecution under this code.
A speed trap is defined in 40802(a) (1) as: “A particular section of a highway measured as to distance and with boundaries marked, designated, or otherwise determined in order that the speed of a vehicle may be calculated by securing the time it takes the vehicle to travel the known distance.”
Clearly, the speed of my vehicle was determined by a time-distance calculation between embedded sensors on a particular section of highway; clearly the distance between these sensors had to be known to determine my speed.
As the automated enforcement system constitutes an illegal speed trap, the court is without jurisdiction to render a conviction in this case pursuant to CVC 40805: “Every court shall be without jurisdiction to render a judgment of conviction against any person for violation of this code involving the speed of a vehicle if the court admits any evidence or testimony secured in violation of, or which is inadmissible under this article.”
Please dismiss my case in the interest of justice.
If the court does not find in my favor in this case, I request a Trial de Novo.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is true and correct.
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