Timeline for Why is the defendant presumed guilty in traffic court?
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16 events
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| Oct 19, 2021 at 0:50 | comment | added | emory | @pjc50 I would have thought that a bigger exception was treason in the United States: "No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court." but I guess technically a conviction can be secured on one piece of evidence. | |
| Jul 12, 2021 at 15:29 | comment | added | grovkin | I don't disagree with anything you said, but maybe you can connect it to the concept asked-about in the question itself. Perhaps clarifying that "proven guilty" means proven to the satisfaction of the decider of fact. | |
| Jul 11, 2021 at 17:18 | comment | added | Steven the Easily Amused | Police officers typically are trained to observe AND take notes. I was pulled over for "driving on the shoulder". In court the officer stated he didn't believe I was wearing a seat belt (I was, I even put my hands out my driver window until he was beside me and I told him before I undid my seatbelt). His evidence was his notes which he read from in court. There is no way he could have distinguished me from the 100 others he'd pulled over in the intervening months. I brought photos of the broken solid line. The judge waived all fines, and points. | |
| Jul 10, 2021 at 8:13 | comment | added | pjc50 | Almost no jurisdictions require more than one item of evidence; the big exception is the doctine of "corroboration" in Scots law. | |
| Jul 9, 2021 at 19:15 | comment | added | slebetman | @user253751 That makes no sense. One evidence is one evidence. It is never composed of two evidences. Two evidences are two evidences. Each evidence is it's own line of evidence. Also in law witness testimony (the statement by the police officer) is the strongest form of evidence. All other evidence such as forensics are circumstantial evidence and are considered weaker than what a witness (the police) say they saw you did. | |
| Jul 9, 2021 at 19:05 | comment | added | RBarryYoung | Not all evidence is equal. A police officer's testimony in a traffic case is considered more compelling than defendant's because it is considered professional, objective and (relatively) unmotivated, whereas a defendant's testimony generally is none of those things. You can however overcome this if you have corroborating evidence, such as another eyewitness who will confirm your claim (and personally, I have done this). | |
| Jul 9, 2021 at 13:36 | vote | accept | tlewis3348 | ||
| Jul 9, 2021 at 11:30 | comment | added | hszmv | Typically speed and red light camera tickets are civil infractions, meaning the burden of proof is "Preponderance of Evidence standard" rather than "Beyond Reasonable doubt." This means the cop doesn't have to prove that he's 100% right, but rather that he's more likely right than he is wrong. | |
| Jul 9, 2021 at 10:47 | comment | added | phoog | @marcelm in Texas, at least, traffic violations are misdemeanors and, therefore, crimes. | |
| Jul 9, 2021 at 9:39 | comment | added | marcelm | @tlewis3348 "Typically, "evidence" is in the form of two independent lines of evidence. This could be an eyewitness to the crime, video evidence, etc. For speeding ..." - Speeding and failing to stop at a sign are traffic code violations; they are not crimes, and are regulated by different laws than criminal law. The requirements for evidence are less strict for such violations than they are for criminal trials. You can't apply assumptions for one to the other. | |
| Jul 9, 2021 at 8:52 | comment | added | Criticizing Israel not allowed | @slebetman s/he didn't say "a line of evidence is two lines of evidence" but "evidence is two lines of evidence" meaning that if you only have one line, it's not evidence (in his/her opinion) | |
| Jul 9, 2021 at 8:32 | comment | added | AmiralPatate | It could be noted police officers usually take an oath and on that basis are untrusted by the state to enforce laws, and are generally presumed trustworthy by said state. That's why the testimony of a police officer (which is generally strong evidence by itself) will usually prevail over yours absent any other evidence. They don't even need a speed gun, in many jurisdictions they can just eyeball it when you are well over the limit. | |
| Jul 9, 2021 at 3:11 | comment | added | slebetman |
Your statement makes no sense. If every evidence requires two lines of evidence then those two evidence requires four evidence which means they require 8 which means you need 16, no you need 32 ... actually you would need infinite evidence to admit any ONE evidence. I presume you actually mean "Typically proof requires two independent evidence". There are two kinds of evidence. Things like eyewitness statements (the police officers) are considered direct evidence, typically regarded as strong evidence. Things like DNA evidence is circumstantial evidence legally considered weak
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| Jul 8, 2021 at 17:51 | comment | added | phoog | @tlewis3348 I agree, but as far as I'm aware there is nothing that elevates "problematic" to "insufficient for conviction" -- especially when it comes to traffic infractions, which aren't even misdemeanors in most states. The main point of this answer is to say that this technically does not violate the presumption of innocence, though I agree that in many cases it does effectively violate that presumption. It's just that getting a court to agree with that is fairly unlikely in most cases. | |
| Jul 8, 2021 at 17:45 | comment | added | tlewis3348 | Typically, "evidence" is in the form of two independent lines of evidence. This could be an eyewitness to the crime, video evidence, etc. For speeding, it could be logs from the speed gun. For violent crimes, it could be DNA. In any case, a single line of evidence seems highly problematic. Particularly when there are quotas in place. If the officer is a little shy of meeting his quota, why would he not write a few people up for running a stop sign whether they did or not? | |
| Jul 8, 2021 at 15:53 | history | answered | phoog | CC BY-SA 4.0 |