Officers test laser speed guns to bolster cases
BLACKSTONE, Va. (AP) - June 27, 2008 Through three days at the Virginia National Guard's Fort
Pickett, about an hour southwest of Richmond, the contraptions
screeched and whined as the officers zeroed in on their targets - a
variety of vehicles including, cars, trucks, a large van and
motorcycles.
"Get ready. Get ready. And, lock," a voice rang out over the
radio.
The officers took turns revealing the speeds their devices
recorded - whether it be a laser gun, radar, time-distance measure
or other methods - as an officer with a clipboard wrote them down.
Sometimes, they all matched. Other times, one or two was off by
a mile an hour.
It wasn't highly scientific, but that was part of the idea, said
master police officer John Lake of the Fairfax County Police
Department, who helped coordinate the testing.
"We didn't want a rocket scientist with a Ph.D. out here doing
it," he said.
Instead, organizers wanted officers who use the devices to
conduct the tests.
At least a dozen courts from New Jersey to Hawaii have taken
what is referred to as judicial notice, or general acceptance, of
laser speed guns. But some prosecutors and judges still aren't sold
on the accuracy of the hand-held devices.
The officers - about 20 of them from Virginia, West Virginia,
Maryland, North Carolina and South Carolina - hope their tests will
change doubters' minds.
"Everybody that uses it loves it," said Virginia State Police
Sgt. Ralph Cofer, who also helped organize the event. "So we want
to make sure that there's some testing done to ensure that when the
courts have a question, there's something available for them to
look at and then hopefully convince them that ... it is accurate."
Laser guns have been used by officers to detect speed for nearly
two decades. Officers look through a scope on the laser gun and can
pinpoint an exact vehicle, whereas radar spreads over a wide area
and the officer must determine which vehicle is doing the projected
speed.
The question is not about the technology, but whether lasers can
be accurate when held in hand.
In April, the Washington Superior Court ruled their use was
admissible as long as certain conditions were met, including daily
checks and officer training.
Around the same time, an Ohio appeals court threw out a
challenge because no cases in that jurisdiction had ruled on the
scientific accuracy of laser devices.
New Jersey suspended the use of lasers from 1996 to 1998 while
tests were done to prove to a judge they were accurate if used
correctly.
Northern Virginia attorney Alex Gordon said he has negotiated
lesser punishments for clients by questioning whether human error
could cause a false reading.
"It depends upon the hands of the person you put it in,"
Gordon said. "You could get the guy that's the best shot in patrol
school or the guy that's the worst shot."
He said it's important that judges in Virginia consider laser
readings on a case-by-case basis instead of granting judicial
notice because driving 20 miles per hour over the speed limit could
land motorists in jail.
"We'd like to think that the prosecutors here and the judges
here know that if we're forced to go to court that we're going to
poke every possible hole in the cases," Gordon said.
There have been only a handful of studies on laser guns, and
none in the past decade. Tests generally found that they were
accurate to within 1 mile per hour of other methods.
"If the operator has been well trained and he or she pays
attention to target selectivity, target acquisition and those kinds
of things ... then the laser is as accurate as any radar unit ever
was," said Bob Jacob, director of the Institute of Police
Technology and Management at the University of North Florida, which
performed the most cited study in 1994.