- April 25, 2024
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When a person accused of a red-light camera violation stands at the podium for a hearing at Palm Coast’s city offices, hearing officers usually ask the questions. The accused merely — and often meekly — replies.
Unless the accused is, say, Circuit Judge Dennis Craig, who defended himself Thursday morning in a scene that made the city offices feel like a courtroom, arguing the city's red-light camera policy is conducted "in bad faith."
After stipulating that his car, making a slow right on red at Palm Coast Parkway and Florida Park Drive, had “violated the red light stop,” Craig turned to Palm Coast Code Enforcement Officer Joseph Festa, verified that Festa had been placed under oath, and fired away:
“Mr. Festa, who was driving that vehicle?” he said.
“I have no idea,” Festa said.
“Okay. So you agree you have no idea.”
“Correct.”
“Alright. What investigation was done by Palm Coast to determine who was driving that vehicle?”
“None,” Festa said.
That's standard — cities with red-light cameras don't investigate who was behind the wheel when a violation took place.
“How many hundreds or thousands of these citations have gone out in which you’re blacking in the box that says, ‘these people are the operators or drivers’ when in fact you don’t have a clue?” Craig asked Festa.
“I have no idea,” Festa said.
“Okay. Is it in the hundreds? Or is it in the thousands?” Craig said.
Under Florida’s red-light camera law, violation notices are mailed to the registered owner of the vehicle that went through the light. Someone who gets a ticket but wasn’t driving the car can exempt themselves from the charge by filling out a form naming someone else as a driver.
Craig wasn’t the driver, and didn’t know who was, he said.
“They say this occurred on Sept. 12, 2013 at 9:38 a.m.,” he said at the hearing. “At that particular time, I was actually down at the Flagler County Courthouse presiding over injunction court — the same place I should be this Thursday morning — so, I was not the driver. And I have no personal knowledge as to who was. Just like Palm Coast has no knowledge as to who was driving.”
Craig asked hearing officer Jennifer Barrington-Nix to dismiss the case.
He said the state statute allows a car’s owner to fill out an affidavit naming someone else as the driver if they want an exemption that doesn’t require a hearing, but that it doesn’t require someone who has, instead, requested a hearing to name someone else in order to be cleared of a violation.
Attorney Robin McKinney, representing Palm Coast, replied that that’s not the case.
“The language of the statute is very clear,” she said. “It states, ‘The owner of the motor vehicle involved in the violation is responsible and liable for paying the Uniform Traffic Citation issued when the driver failed to stop at the signal, unless the owner can establish that … the vehicle at the time of the violation was in the care, custody or control of another person.’”
The only way to do that under the law, she said, would have been to file the affidavit nameing someone else as the driver.
“It is the first owner’s responsibility under the sections of the statute we already discussed to complete the affidavit and submit that to the court,” she said. “That’s the only process by which this individual could transfer the notice of violation to a different person if, in fact, he was not the driver of the vehicle at the time.”
Craig said the city, still seeking to fine him even in light of evidence he wasn’t the driver who committed the violation, appeared to be acting in bad faith.
“The only proof before the hearing here, is that I was not the driver of the vehicle,” he said. “I’m glad to see that it’s Palm Coast’s position that they don’t care who the driver was, they just want somebody to pay the fine. And quite frankly, that goes to the good faith or the bad faith of Palm Coast as well. Now, knowing at this point that the only evidence is that I’m not the driver, they’re still seeking to fine me.”
McKinney replied that the city was simply following the law.
“The Florida legislature writes the statute, not the city of Palm Coast,” she said. “So we are mandated to follow this process. If we didn’t follow it, it might be a problem.”
Craig replied that the city’s willingness to issue a red-light camera fine to someone who wasn’t driving the car during the violation clashed with the city’s statements that the purpose of the red-light camera program is to increase safety.
“I would submit that there’s absolutely no correlation between driving safely and trying to ticket non-drivers for a violation,” he said.
The way the city handles the cases, he said, a person is “guilty until you’re proven innocent, and then you have to inform on somebody else.”
Barrington-Nix, the hearing officer, was silent throughout most of the exchange between Craig and McKinney.
After both spoke at length about the state’s red light statute and the way the city enforces it, Barrington-Nix asked to see the video again, then issued a ruling that sidestepped those legal issues entirely:
“Based upon the testimony received and the evidence reviewed this morning, having watched the video, it seems to me that the vehicle slowed down quite a bit prior to taking that turn, and I can see in the picture that it said it was going 16 mph when clocked,” she said. “I’m going to find that that was in a careful and prudent enough manner in these circumstances to dismiss the violation.”
Craig, cleared of the charge, wasn’t satisfied.
“Alright, so who are you finding is the driver?” he said. “Are you claiming that there’s a presumption that I’m the driver?”
“That right turn, whoever the driver was — not that I’m not addressing that — was making it in a careful and prudent fashion,” Barrington-Nix said.
“So you’re making no ruling on who the driver was or whether or not they have to, or any comment on the fact that they’re sending the tickets out and not just saying, 'you’re responsible just because you’re the owner,' but that they’re accusing you of being the driver?” Craig said.
Barrington-Nix said she didn’t feel it would be appropriate for her to comment in that fashion, “but looking at the Florida statutes as written, and as far as the evidence — ”
“You don’t need to get to that issue because you found that that was a prudent turn,” Craig interjected.
“Right,” Barrington-Nix said.
