RADAR- Bringing doubt to accuracy of device

If you can bring doubt to the accuracy of the radar or lidar device the officer used in a speeding ticket, then you can probably get the radar evidence thrown out and beat the ticket.

There are two ways to do this:

(1) Bring your own expert witness to testify for you. Very expensive!

(2) Cross-examine the officer with questions that bring doubt to the devices accuracy. This option is obviously the less expensive way, but is actually very difficult to do because the officer themselves is not required to be an expert in all areas of the radar and they can just answer they do not know to most of your questions and you have not achieved anything or brought any doubt to the device.

So here is a suggested way that you can try, which combines both methods...

I spent a lot of time searching for this case law, and found it on LexisNexis QuickLaw

R. v. Brewer [1988] O.J. No. 2531

Get a copy here http://iwebss.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... o-2531.pdf

Print three copies of it and highlight the last paragraph on page 3 (and into page 4). Note what Judge Lampkin says in this paragraph:

"I, myself, have looked at what I believe has come to be regarded, In these courts at least, as an authoritative work: "The Law on Speeding and Radar", a book which I commend to the Bar on both sides, defence as well as Crown, and indeed particularly to the police. It is authored by A. Shakoor Manraj, C.C., of The Middle Temple, London, England, barrister-at-law, Crown Prosecutor in The Provincial Offences Appeal Court at Old City Hall, Toronto; and Paul Douglas Haines, ph.D., formerly Consultant to both Canadian and United states Remote Sensing and Defence Research Establishments, now Vice president and Director of Research for Qualimage Incorporated, Gatineau, Quebec, and Research Analyst in Satellite and Airborne Image and Information Processing Systems."

Now get a copy of "The Law on Speeding" by Manraj and Haines and bring this to court as well. Of course you have to read thru it and highlight the important parts first.

During cross examination of the officer you can give a copy of the case law to JP and prosecutor and tell them that you will be asking the officer to read some portions of the book and will be asking him some questions from the book, and that Judge Lampkin's comments in the case law prove the book has some weight and authority. You are NOT trying to enter the book into evidence. You just want to be able to have the officer read from it and and answer questions from it.

So what we are trying to acheive here is having the officer read sections of the book and then asking him if he agrees with what he read or not. If officer answers yes, then great. If the officer answers no, then we ask if he is an expert in this area of radar and knows more than the people that wrote the book (to which he should say no). Whether he answers yes or no is really irrelevent because Judege Lampkin has given weight to the words in the book, and once the officer reads from it, the JP will have to consider it.

It is up to the JP in the end to how much weight they give the information in the book, but I believe because the case law is from a JUDGE, they will have to consider it and give it some weight.

I will follow up in the future with more details on what sections of the book are probably important.

The only thing i'll say about that case is that:

1) It's from 1986, well prior to any training standards in Ontario.

2) Strike out any reference to tuning forks as most manufacturers don't require their use here.

3) It appears the officer didn't receive any training by a qualified instructor and didn't follow the manufacturers testing instructions. Of course this case should have been turned over at this level.

4) This is a Ontario Provincial Court decision and i'm sure there have been several higher court decisions since this one.

Finally, good luck trying to have only select paragraphs read from a book. You can't simply cherry pick out portions of a book that you agree with and leave out others. Thats like picking only case law that is in your favour and ignoring all of the others.

Unless you are going to have the authors of the book present for cross examination, they will not let you use the book...