You don't need to explain anything to the government, that's why we have the 5th amendment. It is the government's job to bring charges against you and prove them beyond reasonable doubt. The government is right to investigate and ask questions to accomplish that and I am right to refuse to answer anything.
It's basically "innocent until proven guilty". Red light cameras turn that assumption around since if your car gets ticketed it is assumed you are "guilty until proven innocent".
I think the argument is generally: nobody has a right to drive a car, it's something we permit by issuing a license and other regulations. One of the conditions is that the owner of a vehicle is ultimately responsible for it.
The judge in this case disagreed, because the red light infraction was not a simple civil fine but quasi-criminal, e.g. points on drivers license, possibly resulting in suspension, etc.
You can own a car and not drive it. It can be stolen from you, anything.
The structure of this whole thing is to avoid having to do an actual investigation. They could subpoena the car owner's phone records for instance. Instead they choose to hide behind bureaucracy and offer you an off ramp in the form of a lower payment to make it all go away.
If the owner is who is responsible for it, then make the ticket to the car and not an individual. State was attempting to play it both ways to tip the outcome in the states favor.
> I think the argument is generally: nobody has a right to drive a car, it's something we permit by issuing a license and other regulations. One of the conditions is that the owner of a vehicle is ultimately responsible for it.
Do you know you can be licensed to drive a vehicle without owning one, and similarly, own one without being licensed to drive it?
Why would the owner of the property be responsible for someone else's actions with that property?
I would say they could be, but its needs to under strict circumstances. Easiest is with guns, I loan you my gun knowing your going to go and use it to commit a crime, but that is covered under being an accessory. With cars, the only situation I can think of is if you loaned your car to someone you knew was drunk and was going to drive. Or you loaned me the car knowing I was going to use it as a get away vehicle in a bank robbery. But I assume the second case would also be covered under being an accessory to the crime.
But for the purposes of traffic tickets, yea, its ridiculous. It also has a lot of faults. I got a traffic ticket from a red light camera for a car I owned when I was stationed in California. The ticket came to me in Oregon 5 years AFTER I traded that vehicle in (I traded it in right before moving to Oregon) and the traffic cam ticket was from Texas, a state I've never driven a vehicle in. My only presence in Texas has been being in the airport in Dallas. The ticket was also for a year prior to when I received it. So I hadn't owned it in 4 years when it ran a red light in Texas.
Because they bought the most dangerous tool we have in common use, and society decided to make the law.
The owner isn't responsible for the drivers actions, but they are required to name the driver. (Or declare the car stolen etc.)
(At least in much of Europe.)
> You don't need to explain anything to the government, that's why we have the 5th amendment.
As someone else said, this only works against self-incrimination? If you say it wasn't you then you need to testify or get prosecuted?
First, you have the right to say nothing at all; there is no requirement to incriminate someone else to protect yourself.
Second, you can still generally invoke the 5th amendment during testimony even if you already claimed someone else did it. You aren't under oath until said testimony, so it still protects against you having to choose between committing perjury or self-incrimination, and doing so cannot be used as evidence of either.
No, you don't always have the right to say nothing at all. Courts can compel testimony and punish you if you don't.
And you plead the 5th after going under oath. And you can't just plead the 5th to any question. If the prosection puts you under oath and asks you your name, you can't plead the 5th to that
That's why I said generally - once testimony is compelled, it can no longer be used against you. And the definite exception for compelling your name is if the government already believes that you committed a crime and is trying to figure out who you are, and you cannot articulate specifically why your name could be incriminating.
5th amendment protections can include questions of identity, if the question of identity is relevant for incrimination. Like, if the government has a warrant for "Joe Smith", you're not required to testify whether that's you. It's usually a waste of time since could just prove it with the non-testimonial evidence that lead to your arrest, but the protection does exist.
The 5th amendment with regard to self-incrimination only applies to criminal cases. When I represented myself in court for a speeding ticket the judge threatened me under pain of contempt that I had to testify against myself.
Most camera tickets are either civil moving, or civil non-moving. Civil moving are against a person and civil non-moving are against the vehicle. Neither of which case does 5th amendment protect you from incriminating yourself, and neither of which does it require prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
Read the ruling. The judge says red light camera cases are quasi-criminal in the way they are handled even if nominally civil and thus can be subject to constitutional requirements including the protection of the 5th amendment.