Quake3World

In a 5-to-1 ruling, the court said an officer's "unaided visual estimation of a vehicle's speed" is strong enough to support a ticket and conviction. A radar speed detector, commonly used by patrolmen, is not needed, the court concluded.

Ryoki wrote:Yeah, don't think it's that weird tbh. If you spend your day giving speeders tickets for a while, surely you become quite good at estimating.

MKJ wrote:

Ryoki wrote:Yeah, don't think it's that weird tbh. If you spend your day giving speeders tickets for a while, surely you become quite good at estimating.

without recording data one cant prove otherwise. meaning that a cop can give you a speedingticket cause he doesnt like your face.
i dont think justice works like that sir.

morguen87 wrote:I hate asshole drivers and it's pretty obvious when somebody's speeding, they're typically driving like pissed off yellow jackets and putting other people at risk. Besides, he did use a radar gun, it clocked the driver going 82/83mph in a 60mph zone, it was just thrown out cause he couldn't provide a certificate proving he was trained to use a radar gun.
I'm sure pointing the gun at a speeding driver and the reading was just some kind of coincidence.

morguen87 wrote:in regards to speeding, in court a cop is an expert witness and provides expert testimony.

Eraser wrote:

morguen87 wrote:in regards to speeding, in court a cop is an expert witness and provides expert testimony.

I never understood why this would be. When the case is Police vs You, then how in the hell can a representative of the police (in fact, the one that fined you in the first place) be a neutral eyewitness?
I'm with MKJ and l0g1c on this one. It's just a cheap way to cover the ass of policemen that got a bad day.

O’DONNELL, J., dissenting.
I respectfully dissent.
While a police officer who is trained, certified by the Ohio Peace Officer Training Academy, and experienced in estimating a vehicle’s speed may, as any other expert witness, offer an opinion of the speed of a moving vehicle during testimony in a court proceeding, I do not agree that such testimony per se is sufficient evidence to support a conviction for speeding. Like any other witness, a police officer’s credibility is to be determined by the jury or other factfinder. (‘[T]he weight to be given the evidence and the credibility of the witnesses are primarily for the trier of the facts’”). In fact, jury instructions given regularly by trial judges advise that a jury is privileged to believe all, part, or none of the testimony of any witness. See, e.g., State v. Group, (citing jury instruction stating that jurors may believe or disbelieve all or any of the testimony of any witness). Thus, I would assert that a broad standard as postulated majority that a trained, certified, and experienced officer’s estimate of speed sufficient evidence to support a conviction for speeding eclipses the role fact-finder to reject such testimony and thus such testimony, if found not credible, could, in some instances, be insufficient to support a conviction.