Arizona
Larry Fitzgerald photo radar tickets dismissed Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald “received” quite a bit of publicity recently for the five photo-radar tickets issued in his name.
Four of those five tickets have now been dismissed by motions of either the prosecutor or arresting officer. While it may not be entirely clear from these pictures as posted here, four of the drivers were simply not Larry Fitzgerald.
These ticket dismissals show the risk law enforcement runs when they choose to replace live officer traffic enforcement with automated enforcement methods. A photograph cannot automatically determine the name and pedigree information of driver. The best a state can do is issue the ticket to the registered owner of the vehicle and then make a choice–either prosecute as a parking ticket, where the ID of the actual driver is of no consequence, or try to prosecute as a moving violation but run the risk it will be dismissed if the registered owner named on the ticket was not the actual driver of the vehicle.
This was a good example where prosecuting as a moving violation didn’t work out.
Getting burned by Larry Fitzgerald’s speed is nothing new – we see it every football Sunday. Getting burned by his friends speed, however, is another story altogether.
