ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida judge has ruled the state’s red light cameras as unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
That ruling out of Broward County could set a precedent, and impact how red light cameras are used.<\/p>\n
The City of Pensacola has 13 red light cameras installed at intersections. Data from the city in August shows each location averaged nearly 100 citations a day.<\/p>\n
The city says 2025 saw more than 29,000 violations. <\/p>\n
“We take those as they come,” said Mayor D.C. Reeves. “If that becomes an issue and they aren’t able to be used in Florida, then we’ll adjust accordingly.”<\/p>\n
Attorney Joel Mumford explains why a Broward County judge ruled red light camera citations as illegal.<\/p>\n
“The agencies that issue the tickets, it’s their burden to prove all the elements of the crime beyond and to the extent of each and every reasonable doubt. And the first element, which should be, who’s driving the car,” Mumford said. “The statute in Florida presumes that the registered owner is the driver of the car.”<\/p>\n
The registered owner of the vehicle is the person who gets the citation from a red light camera. To contest a citation, the owner must prove they were not the driver at the time.<\/p>\n
The Broward County judge says that’s unconstitutional, because the defendant then has the burden of proving they’re innocent. Per the constitution, the prosecution should have the burden of proof.<\/p>\n
“What could probably happen is they, the court, could then get an appeal,” said Mumford. “And then, if it goes up to the District Courts of Appeal level and then make a decision on it. Depending on what that says, that could then be applied to the entire state, if there’s no similar appellate cases throughout the state. So that could make it statewide.\u201d<\/p>\n
The citation in the Broward County case was dismissed. Right now, that court decision only applies in Broward County. <\/p>\n
But it could be used to challenge citations anywhere in the state.<\/p>\n
“It’s just kind of a wait and see approach when we hear things happening in the other side of the state that aren’t final about anything, then we just continue as normal,” Reeves said. “But it’s our job to adjust and pivot if things change.”<\/p>\n
The City of Pensacola is not the only place with red light cameras. Gulf Breeze also has red light cameras at three intersections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida judge has ruled the state’s red light cameras as unconstitutional. That ruling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186932,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-186931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}