The battle over the cameras that many California cities and counties use to nab motorists who blow through red lights or – more commonly – make rolling stops for right turns has raged in the Capitol for several years without resolution.

Critics of the cameras – which are installed and operated by private companies for shares of the resulting traffic fine revenues – say they are used primarily to generate income for local government coffers and serve little or no traffic safety purpose.

The critics found a friendly audience for their complaints in the Legislature. Two years ago, they finally won legislative approval of a bill that would have reduced fines for rolling red light turns caught on camera, overcoming stout opposition from lobbyists for local governments.

However, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger rejected the measure, saying that someone who makes a rolling turn on a red light "makes a very dangerous traffic movement that endangers the nearby motoring public, bicyclists, and pedestrians" and that lowering fines "sends the wrong message to the public that California is tolerant of these types of offenses."

The issue may be stalled in the Capitol, but red light cameras may go dark anyway, thanks to a new appellate court decision in Southern California.

While other courts have thrown out red light camera cases based on arguments of motorists that they were being convicted on hearsay testimony, the 2nd District Court of Appeal has provided legal heft for that contention with a published decision involving a motorist in Beverly Hills and Redflex Traffic System, the Arizona firm that is most aggressive in pitching cameras to local governments.

The court, in a unanimous decision (B229748), decreed that motorist Annette Borzakian could not be fined $425 because the policeman who signed the ticket, Mike Butkus, didn't actually see the incident but depended on the word of Redflex employees who maintained the system and reviewed pictures.

By contracting out traffic law enforcement at intersections to Redflex, the city violated a state law requiring "a witness to testify as to the identity of the record and its mode of preparation in every instance" and since Butkus was not involved in verifying the integrity of the system, the photographic evidence was inadmissible.

So now any driver who receives a red light camera ticket has a published appellate court decision to challenge its validity.

The appellate decision, moreover, provides legal weight for a class-action lawsuit that's been filed against Redflex and the city of Victorville, alleging that red light cameras violate the long-standing rule that an officer must witness a traffic infraction to issue a ticket.

Therefore, the suit contends, any tickets based on information from Redflex are invalid.

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Call The Bee's Dan Walters, (916) 321-1195. Back columns, www.sacbee.com/walters Follow him on Twitter @WaltersBee.

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