City of Corona, CA claims that traffic defendants must be compelled to testify City of Corona CA continues giving fraudulent legal advice to ensare motorists
By Martin Hill
LibertyFight.com August 21, 2012
The city of Corona, California, including their Mayor Eugene Montanez and Police Chief Michael Abel, have refused to respond to repeated inquiries and have refused to cease their practice of giving fraudulent legal advice to visitors of their official website. An e-mail sent to Brad Robbins, listed as City Manager, was returned as undeliverable.
The city is giving blatantly false information and misleading readers who visit their official webpage on red-light camera ticket information.
"On March 30, 2009, the City of Corona installed red light enforcement cameras at various intersections throughout the city. The cameras photograph motorists that fail to stop for a red light and also records the violations in streaming video. If you have been photographed failing to stop for a red light you will receive a notice in the mail. The notice will be addressed to the registered owner of the vehicle or the actual driver if he/she can be identified by the reviewing officer. If you were not driving the vehicle at the time of the violation, you must provide the name and address of the person driving." [emphasis added.]
In reality, no one in the United States, or in any state or city, can be compelled to testify against themselves, or at all, for that matter. So the claim by the City of Corona that any recipient of their revenue scheme red-light camera tickets "MUST" submit anything to the police or anyone else, is blatantly false and a violation of due process. The information posted on Corona's website, while mild in comparison to the many governmental abuses in existence today, is nevertheless a sneaky, dishonest, and underhanded way for the Police Dept. and City to operate.
The e-mail inquiries sent August 16th to Mayor Montanez (far left), Police Chief Abel (left), and City manager to their official e-mail addresses listed on the city website asked "Given the fact that we have a 5th Amendment, which states, in part, "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself", on what legal basis is this claim posted to your website? Is this purported to be legal advice to defendants seeking information on their citation?
Does your city attorney or local prosecutor have any comment on this section of your website?
In addition, due to some recent CA appeals court decisions and lawsuits regarding these cameras, an explanation would be insightful. Thanks."
The Corona Police Department "Mission Statement" states "Our members pride themselves in being the model for law enforcement with vision, while performing with integrity and professionalism. We accomplish our mission by ensuring we
Provide quality customer service by enhancing police professionalism and valuing community trust."[emphasis added]. However, posting false information to clueless defendants and refusing to respond to inquiries about it is neither professional or trustworthy, and is certainly not a model of integrity or quality.
Originally pointed out by HighwayRobbery.net on their Corona documents page, the deceptive text remains unchanged. On their CAMERA TOWNS page, HighwayRobbery.net includes more information about the Corona camera system:
City of Corona, California
Corona, pop. 150,000, is 10 miles southwest of Riverside.
The City signed a contract with RedFlex on Nov. 5, 2008.
Some of the "tickets" mailed may be "Snitch Tickets," which you can ignore. A Snitch Ticket will not have the Court's name and address on it. For more details, see the Snitch Ticket section on the Your Ticket page.
The contract includes an illegal "cost neutrality" clause, whereby the city will not have to pay RedFlex the full rent if there aren't enough fines to cover the cost. See Subsection B. of Defect # 10.
The contract possibly provides a monetary sanction against the city if city traffic engineers lengthen the yellows. The contract reads:
"Cost neutrality is guaranteed except as follows: If the Customer [the City] fails to maintain the minimum yellow light change interval as established by Section 21455.7 of the California Vehicle Code."
The passage is open to two conflicting interpretations.
1. The City is required to maintain yellows that are at least as long as the length specified by the Code - but can be longer.
2. The City is required to maintain the exact length specified by the Code, and may not set yellows that are longer.
The contract also says: Definitions. "Warning Period" means the time period commencing on the Installation Date for the each Designated Intersection Approach and ending on the date that is thirty (30) days later. (Emphasis added.) See Defect # 6.
Ticket counts for the City's cameras are available at: City of Corona Documents.
HighwayRobbery.net also reminds us that "tickets from cities in LA County can be ignored because the LA County court does not report ignored tickets to the DMV. (That does not apply to other counties.)" The info about LA County tickets is here.
Pasadena, California recently ended their red light camera program, and cited motorists lack of voluntary compliance as one of the reasons for scrapping the cameras. A Memorandum from the Pasadena Department of Transportation and Police Department to the City's Public Safety Committee dated December 5, 2011 outlined the reasons for ending the program along with some revealing info (Document courtsey of HighwayRobbery.net:)
"In Los Angeles County, unlike other counties, the courts have elected to treat non-payment of red light camera violations differently than similar citations issued in person by sworn personnel. The net result of this action is that there is no effective penalty for non-payment of red light camera violations in Los Angeles County. As the lack of consequences has become better known by violators, the rate of non-payment has increased, thereby eroding the program's deterrent effect against red light running."
The document also noted that as more people opted to fight their tickets, the city began to lose revenue:
"The high cost of a citation and greater awareness of how LA County courts have been treating RLC citations has led to an increase in court challenges for RLC citations. The effect on Pasadena of these changes has been an increased number of court appearances for our officers to defend red light running citations. Overall, even with a reduced number of citations, sworn personnel are spending a greater proportion of their time testifying in court because of the increased challenges." ...The great news is that people are fighting back, suing cities and red light camera companies and
beating these fraudulent tickets in court. As always, I highly recommend two great websites, HighwayRobbery.net and HelpIgotAticket.com for those ticketed in California. [From Pasadena scraps revenue cameras, but leaves dangerous mess in their wake.]
Martin Hill is a Catholic paleoconservative and civil rights advocate. His work has been featured on LewRockwell.com, WhatReallyHappened, Infowars, PrisonPlanet, National Motorists Association, WorldNetDaily, The Orange County Register, KNBC4 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Catholic Lay Mission Newspaper, KFI 640, The Press Enterprise, Antiwar.com, IamtheWitness.com, FreedomsPhoenix, Rense, BlackBoxVoting, and many others. Archives can be found at LibertyFight.com
The e-mail inquiries sent August 16th to Mayor Montanez (far left), Police Chief Abel (left), and City manager to their official e-mail addresses listed on the city website asked "Given the fact that we have a 5th Amendment, which states, in part, "No person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself", on what legal basis is this claim posted to your website? Is this purported to be legal advice to defendants seeking information on their citation?
