West Palm Beach Judge May Soon Throw Out Red Light Tickets

Last month I published an article about a recent case in which an appeals court ruled that it is illegal for a private company to issue traffic tickets to people for running a red light in Hollywood Florida. Because of that case, a traffic judge in West Palm Beach may soon start dismissing similar tickets as reported by the Palm Beach Post in the following article that appeared yesterday:

"West Palm Beach’s red-light cameras judge has given the city 60 days to resolve disputes over the system — or else he’ll toss some 150 pending cases.

On Oct. 16, West Palm Beach shut down its cameras, one day after the 4th District Court of Appeal ruled on cameras in Hollywood, which has procedures similar to West Palm Beach’s.

Siding with a motorist, the West Palm Beach-based appeals court said Hollywood violated state law by relying on a private company to issue traffic citations to red-light runners. The decision reversed an April ruling by the same court. It came after the Florida Supreme Court in June ruled in two other red-light camera cases that dealt with whether cities followed state traffic laws.

At a hearing Wednesday, the city asked Ira Raab, a retired New York State judge and the city’s magistrate for red light camera violations, to continue the 85 cases for six months while the Hollywood case works its way either through additional action at the appeals court or ends up at the Florida Supreme Court.

Instead, the judge gave the city until Jan. 7. After that, he said, the cases all would be dismissed.

He said another 70 or so cases are set for his Dec. 3 docket, and those also were delayed to Jan. 7, at which time they, too, would be thrown out."