By Jane Musgrave, The Palm Beach Post

9:21 p.m. EDT, June 15, 2011

The latest efforts to throw out red-light cameras has endangered regular red-light tickets instead.

In a ruling attorney Ted Hollander hopes will be adopted by judges throughout the state, a Broward County judge last month ruled that regular citations for running red lights are unconstitutional because they carry a far more severe penalty than those slapped on motorists caught on camera running a red light. The disparity — a $264 fine vs. a $158 fine — violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution, said Broward County Court Judge Fred Berman.

"A driver who is observed by an officer committing the violation [in the traditional manner] is subjected to more severe penalties and ramifications than a driver who is fortunate enough to have committed the infraction at a "red light camera" intersection," he wrote
In addition to a bigger fine, a motorist slapped with a regular red-light ticket can get four points assessed on their driver's license, which can drive up their insurance rates. Those convicted of a camera violation get none.
Hollander hoped to ask Palm Beach County Court Judge Laura Johnson last week to embrace Berman's ruling. However, he won the case automatically when the officer who issued the ticket failed to show up.

Working for the West Palm Beach office of The Ticket Clinic, Hollander said he has other tickets in the pipeline and hopes to make the same pitch to county court judges in Palm Beach and Miami-Dade counties within the month.

The problem, he and others say, is the process is painstakingly slow. Berman's ruling isn't binding on other county court judges in Broward County, much less others in the state. To make it stick, a Broward circuit judge has to adopt Berman's view. Then, anyone who gets a ticket for running a red light in Broward County would get a free pass.

But before it would have any impact in Palm Beach County, the 4th District Court of Appeal would also have to agree that the year-old, red-light-camera law has made constitutional mincemeat out of the traditional red-light ticket.

Attorney William Abramson, who has launched an attack on the constitutionality of the red-light-camera statute, said Hollander's tack will take too long. Further, he said, he isn't out to give motorists free rein to run red lights. He said he believes the concept of giving motorists tickets based on the snap of a camera is wrong.

"I can't argue it both ways," he said of the idea of challenging traditional red-light tickets. "I'm uncomfortable with that."

Instead, he is focusing his efforts on a lawsuit, claiming the red-light-camera law violates one of the basic tenets of the nation's criminal justice system: Innocent until proven guilty.

According to the law that went into effect July 1, a motorist can beat the ticket by submitting proof he wasn't behind the wheel when the photo was snapped. Abramson is arguing that it's the government's responsibility to prove who was driving.

His lawsuit has already survived one challenge from the Florida Attorney General's Office. It could be decided in the next several months. Because it is before a circuit judge, if he wins it would become the law in Palm Beach County.

"I have a really good chance of getting a ruling from the DCA by the end of the year," he said. "Why not cut to the chase? I'll get a ruling much more quickly."

Jennifer Meale, communications director for Attorney General Pam Bondi, said the office plans to appeal Berman's ruling. In court papers, agency attorneys argued that traffic cameras are "a unique method of enforcement" and therefore the legislature could create different penalties for violations.

Both are lucrative for the state. From July 1, when the red-light-camera law took effect, until June 1, the state collected $17.1 million. During the same time, it collected $4.35 million from those caught by cops running red lights. Neither number includes the millions more that goes to counties and municipalities that issue both types of tickets.

Charles Territo, a spokesman for American Traffic Solutions Inc., said he was confident that court fights launched by Hollander and Abramson will fail. The company has the contract to run the red-light-camera programs in West Palm Beach, Boynton Beach, Juno Beach, Palm Springs and most other cities and counties across the state that have them.

"Courts across the country have time and again upheld red-light safety camera programs against constitutional challenges," Territo said. "Contrary to the belief of red-light-camera opponents, there is no constitutional right to break the law, run red lights and injure or kill other drivers, passengers pedestrians or bicyclists."

Like Abramson, Hollander said his true aim is red-light cameras. He is hoping the legislature won't sacrifice the regular red-light tickets for the camera program and eventually his lawsuit will spur the measure's repeal.

"I want cameras to disappear," he said. "I don't think they're fundamentally right."

But, he said, change will come slowly. "This is the beginning of a very long process."

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