Washington state's second-highest court ended the year denying the right of motorists to challenge an unfair or unlawful ruling from a superior court judge. The Court of Appeals declared last Tuesday that it would not hear any appeals for infractions -- not even from city governments.
That came as bad news for the city of Spokane which had sought to overturn a Spokane County Superior Court decision throwing out red light camera tickets as unlawful. Judge Jerome Leveque examined the $124 citations that Arizona-based American Traffic Solutions (ATS) mailed to registered vehicle owners Mark Wardrop, Jennifer Lee, and Susan Annechiarico. He noted that state law requires such legal accusations to be certified true under the penalty of perjury under a signature that "states the date and place of its execution." The red light camera tickets indicated a police officer signed the citation in Spokane, but they were actually "signed" electronically by ATS in Arizona. Judge Leveque ruled in June that this process violated the law.
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