So here’s the situation. A pedi-cab driver is getting robbed in Newport, RI and a witness calls 911 for a robbery in progress. A police dispatcher is able to manually aim a nearby traffic camera to record the incident, identify the bad guys and their license plate. And they were arrested not long after the robbery.
First I didn’t even know it was possible to aim these traffic cams to anything but the street.
I am wondering though if it’s legal to use cameras for this purpose? When red-light cameras or traffic monitoring cameras are authorized in a state, I thought the laws restricted their use to traffic violations or traffic monitoring? Are there state laws that allow law enforcement to use whatever the cameras happen to record?
In my untrained mind, I would think that if traffic cameras are legally restricted to traffic (in RI at least), then the perps here could actually get out of jail.
Even if it wasn’t allowed all that would happen is that particular piece of evidence would be thrown out. If they could still establish a connection between the robbers and the victim, they wouldn’t need the photo as evidence.
Just because something is throw out as evidence, doesn’t necessarily mean everything from that point on is also thrown out.
There’s no privacy problem as you have no expectation of privacy on a public street, and anyone can snap your photo.
The police certainly use photos obtained from private businesses for catching crooks. Lets say you’re mugged and the security camera from the 7-11 catches you. Police routinely go to all the businesses after a crime and look to see if any business may have had a camera that caught something
One thing that is interesting in Chicago, which has installed a lot of cameras is they don’t seem to have any effect on lowering crime. BUT and here’s the big but, they have a major difference in getting convictions.
Also remember in the USA more than 90% of all crimes are plea bargained. You go up to a guy you arrested and show him a picture of him committing the crime. Do you think he’s gonna risk going to a jury with it or that he will get the picture thrown out as evidence or whatever.
No and any public defender will probably be overwhelmed with so many cases he’ll advise the client to take the plea bargain.
So even improperly obtained evidence, and I’m not saying this is, but if it was, it still can be used a leverage to get a criminal, one way or another
Why do you think this to be the case? I’m not being snarky, just curious if it was discussed in the media that there are these restrictions.
In Chicago, I think one of the main objections to traffic cameras were that they were to provide citations without a human witness. As a result, the citation was downgraded to no longer be a moving violation and the cameras were rolled out. If this is the case in RI, then it wouldn’t apply there because an LEO operator was controlling the camera and witnessing the feed.
IANAL, but there seems to be a pretty large leeway given to LEO and their use of cameras. There is a group here in Chicago dedicated to encouraging the police to adopt policy detailing how these cameras can be used, who can use them, and what is required to take control of a camera. Two concerns in Chicago are that just about anyone can take control of a camera without prior approval and that these cameras could be used to observe public spaces – for example political rallies. Currently, there are very few restrictions. Pittsburgh, however, has a pretty good policy governing their use.
In any case, these policies are self-imposed by the police departments; they are not necessarily laws.
It’s a fair question. It had been my impression that when the PA legislature passed a law allowing Philadelphia to have red light cameras, they limited the scope of what the cameras could photograph.
In the very limited research I can do on my iPhone, I dug up a copy of a law from a city in Washington. The law looks like it places restrictions on the use of the cameras.
It is only one city in one state but at least I know that I am not completely insane.
When I see public debate on the use of surveillance cameras, something like this tells me that a city could have said they were just installing traffic monitoring cameras everywhere and then used them as surveillance cameras anyway.
A red light enforcement camera, a traffic observation camera, a traffic signal sequencing camera and a general anti-crime surveillance camera are very different things technologically. And legally.
Limitations placed on red light enforcement cameras don’t necessarily apply to any other sort of camera installed for any other purpose.
The devil is in the details. What’s law, custom, policy, and regulation for each of hundreds of agencies & jurisdictions?
My point is to make sure we’re (collectively) not talking past each other using the same words to refer to different things in different places.
I have seen a picture on the internet of a guy surfing on a car through an intersection. The photo was a red light camera photo and it was thrown out of court (according to the store) because the light malfunctioned (yellow light was in the picture) and would have been thrown out
I may be just an overwhelmed public defender, but even I wouldn’t use evidence that I thought I could get thrown out as “leverage” to get my client to take a plea just to make less work for myself. :rolleyes: I’ve never personally met one who would. There are several regular posters here who are current or former PD’s who could probably tell you the same.
That being said, while I haven’t examined the laws relating to traffic cams in that state, my bet would be that the code restricts offenses for which you can get a citation or conviction based solely on the camera. That doesn’t necessarily prevent the use of information gathered in establishing probable cause to pull over the car, or even its introduction into evidence as part of a larger case. As you said, there’s no expectation of privacy on a public street. Legislatures tend to be hesitant to tie the hands of police in matters of probable cause and evidence, for just this sort of reason. The case that gets thrown out on a “technicality” that makes no common sense is pretty rare in real life.