You have a flawed understanding of how it works.
The defense doesn’t have to submit any evidence or prove anything. They certainly don’t have have to prove a negative. It’s the prosecution that has to do the proving and that is going to be rather difficult and a waste of resources for what most likely is not even a crime.
Nobody was under oath when they made their confessions. They have every right to retract what they claimed.
Their “confessions” are admissible even if they don’t testify (statement against interest). Retractions would not be admissible if made out of court, and would only get to a jury if they took the stand and opened themselves up to cross examination. Most lawyers would advise against testifying that it was all a joke (unless it actually is a hoax of some kind).
However, the confessions might not be sufficient to convict. See corpus delecti Rule
Back in the days of newsgroups, misc.transport.road speculated on the possibility of being issued tickets based on travel time on ticketed toll road. Someone mentioned that if it happened to him he’d be subpoenaing the people that set the clocks on both ends. That chances of both of them and the officer that wrote the ticket showing up in court aren’t great.
Note there was a similar case where someone was caught after setting the record for fastest lap around Manhattan. Of course, that was one jurisdiction, and he revealed enough information that they were able to track him with various road cameras.
The article stated that they carried a 3rd party GPS tracker. If the police can get their hands on that data, then they can conduct all kinds of evidence fishing.
The defense that suggests that the video is a fake would be seriously weakened by the police obtaining a warrant and capturing any of their raw footage. One reason there might not be any arrests is that police are putting together a solid case and trying to figure out all the places to serve warrants on at any given time.
I’d be incredibly surprised if the police had to rely on the videos they made. Are there really no independent video cameras along that whole stretch of road.
I’m not convinced that the fact that one of several people might have been the driver at any given point in time is going to be sufficient defense. Isn’t that exactly what conspiracy charges are for? Pretty sure that getting a group of people together to commit a crime doesn’t have the easy out of “ha, but you can’t prove exactly which one of us committed the crime!”
Which they don’t have to answer anything that might incriminate themselves.
The majority of law enforcement aren’t going to pursue all this for traffic violations. True, reckless driving can be a crime but usually only a misdemeanor. I’m thinking some agency with a hard on will try, though. And It will be interesting to see how far they get.
Conspiracy to commit speeding?:dubious::dubious::dubious:
The only reason I can see a local jurisdiction going to the trouble is PR, and that’s both unlikely to succeed in getting a conviction and very likely to backfire in people asking why they are wasting time on such a minor thing.
Conspiracy to commit speeding?:dubious::dubious::dubious:
The only reason I can see a local jurisdiction going to the trouble is PR, and that’s both unlikely to succeed in getting a conviction and very likely to backfire in people asking why they are wasting time on such a minor thing.
Does that occur every time someone purchases a radar detector? We could charge the buyer, the store they bought it from, and the manufacturer?
Why is a confession, made out of court and not under oath, admissible but a subsequent retraction, made out of court and not under oath, is not admissible?
It’s admissible. You have to think about this as part of what happens in the courtroom, the jury may only rely on information they have been presented.
The prosecution presents the freely offered public confession of the crime, all the background details provided by the defendants to the various media outlets, along with the snippets of their own video showing them actually doing the deed along a street in the local jurisdiction.
The defense now has to present the retraction. How exactly do you think that’s going to happen? The defense lawyer can’t simply say it was a joke, he has to present evidence. He has to submit the retraction as evidence, I’m no law talking guy, but I doubt he’s going to be allowed to submit a videotaped retraction, when the defendant is sitting right there in the courtroom. The retraction is going to come in the form of the defendant on the stand, where is his now open to cross examination, and the prosecutor is going to hammer him on the details of this supposed joke.
Something like a Garmin Nuvi is a receiver only; it doesn’t upload data anywhere, doesn’t even have that capability. Recording a trip is like a stopwatch; once you press <reset> all of that data is gone, or leaving it “running” in their parked car overnight would do a lot to bring their average speed down since you’re adding time but not distance.
GoPro record to a thumbnail sized micro SD car. That card is easily removable from the camera. Assuming they still have access to the raw video (they’ve already edited it & published it so don’t necessarily need it anymore) it could be on that card which they may or may not have in their possession or they could have uploaded it to anyone of a number of different cloud storage devices. It’s quite possible they handed off the card to someone else who created the video for them.
It’s so easy to hide such a small memory card that even if they do have it would the police go thru everything with such a fine toothed comb to find evidence for such a relatively minor crime? Every pants pocket, every sock in their sock drawer, every Kleenex in the box?
Traffic cams frequently don’t have the resolution to make out details (like license plate) of a particular car, let alone the resolution or proper angle (as they are usually mounted up high to see further down the road) to see inside as to who was behind the wheel. Nor do they know exactly what day / time they’re looking for. Seems like a lot of work to sift thru all of that camera footage that may not reveal anything even if they do find what they’re looking for.
In many states moving violations are summary &/or non-criminal violations. Does conspiracy charge even apply. I’m thinking the most they could be arrested on is a reckless endangerment charge. Again would a conspiracy charge even apply to that offense?
In short, yeah, they were idiots for doing it. Yeah, they were even bigger idiots for announcing it publicly so soon after doing it; however, I bet they get away with it, partially because I don’t think any police/prosecutor is going to put forth the effort to prosecute what is a relatively minor crime. Now had they caused an accident that resulted in death that would be a different story.
As I understand it, conspiracy offenses are not strictly defined, it’s simply an agreement to commit a “crime”. If they are charged with reckless endangerment, that would be the underlying crime, and conspiracy would apply.
They didn’t use them because they’re illegal? That didn’t stop them from driving 190 MPH. So some laws are OK to break and some aren’t?
Sure the laws you can be arrested for breaking even if you aren’t caught in the act are much more important then the ones the cops would have to hundreds of hours of work to give you a ticket. For instance if their car was registered in California I bet they wouldn’t admit to a radar detector since they are illegal.
IANAL but my understanding is that once you take the stand in your own defense you cannot simply plead the 5th on cross-examination. You have effectively waived that right and must answer questions relevant to the testimony you have given.
Since when are radar detectors illegal in California?
AFAIK the only state(s) they are illegal in are Virginia and D.C. And just because your vehicle is registered in those places doesn’t mean you can’t use one in said vehicle in other states.
BTW, FYI, radar and laser detectors are all but useless. I pull over drivers with them all the time. Using the hold feature by the time your detector goes beep I already have your number.
I’m not familiar with California law, so just going by what I looked up:
Punishment is for each person to be guilty of the whole.
But was what they did a felony?
Exhibition of speed is considered a wobblette, meaning that it can be charged as either a misdemeanor or an infraction. Though the defendant must evidently consent to being charged with a misdemeanor (which allows for a trial, unlike an infraction). Public disturbance seems to be the same.
I’m not familiar enough with California case law to know whether a felony is required to qualify for conspiracy.
Posted too soon.
California doesn’t seem to have a reckless endangerment statute (dunno about the other states they drove through). Closest seems to be reckless driving, which is a misdemeanor. And one of the defenses is that the defendant was not the person driving.
There is a law against speed contests, whether against another car or against a time limit. Normally a misdemeanor, this is a wobbler, which can be prosecuted as either a misdemeanor or a felony, but that only seems to happen if someone was seriously injured in the contest.
You know it looks like I was lied to when I took Driver’s Ed 20 years ago. They said radar detectors we’re illegal even though the stats around us allowed them. The people who I knew who had them always mounted them in inconspicuous places so they wouldn’t be seen. In looking it up right now its seems they are illegal to have mounted to your window so all of those inconspicuous installations were probably legal and that why people did them.