The cameras that photograph motorists allegedly breaking the law in San Diego intersections are also producing legal hurdles for the camera contractor.
Teaneck, N.J.-based Lockheed Martin IMS, a unit of Bethesda, Md.-based Lockheed Martin Corp., is now helping the city of San Diego defend its street corner cameras in court.
Technically it is 133 motorists on trial before San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald Styn. The city alleges the automated cameras took photos of the motorists running red lights.
Yet the camera technology is also coming under intense scrutiny , scrutiny that one attorney said could produce more than the motorists’ defense.
“My intent is to run the cameras out of the county,” said Coleen M. Cusack, one of the drivers’ Downtown-based attorneys, who operates with attorney Arthur F. Tait III under the name RedLightLawyers.com.
Cusack said last week the defense team was putting Lockheed Martin IMS and the city into a quandary.
She is trying to get the company to release software, schematics, manuals and other documents related to the cameras.
From what she understands, Cusack said release of the documents would violate Lockheed Martin’s confidentiality agreement with the cameras’ Dutch manufacturer, Gatsometer B.V.
Yet if the documents are not released, the judge may dismiss the case against her clients, Cusack said. That may mean others fighting tickets from the cameras will have a way to beat them, she said.
Cusack is working to add 166 other clients to the case.
Meanwhile, a Lockheed Martin spokesman claimed a court victory April 13, when the judge ruled the cameras were not new and untested technology.
Company spokesman Mark Maddox said Lockheed Martin is required to keep certain camera information to itself under its contract with Gatsometer.
Yet he said the judge now has the confidentiality agreement for review, and the company “will comply with whatever the judge ultimately decides to do, period.”
One thing the defense attorneys have challenged is whether the camera system produces accurate data. Company spokesman Mark Maddox said the data is accurate.
Hearings have put a Lockheed Martin employee on the stand for a detailed discussion on how the cameras work.
According to company representatives, the cameras snap two photos per incident. The devices are tripped when vehicles travel over wire loops in the pavement, modifying the magnetic field there.
For each photo, not one but two shutters open simultaneously. One records the scene in the intersection. The other records a data readout showing time, date, place, how long the light has been red and the speed of the car.
The city of San Diego currently has 19 intersections with cameras, according to the police department. Lockheed Martin is working to put a camera at Front and Beech streets, said a company spokesman, confirming the company puts the units up at its own expense.
Police Sgt. Ernie Adams said his department issues tickets for roughly 40 percent of incidents photographed. Published reports said several factors can prevent a ticket from being served. One common problem: lack of a front license plate.
In January, the San Diego cameras photographed 6,652 incidents, resulting in 2,385 citations, Adams said. December 2000 produced 7,860 incidents and 3,145 citations, November produced 8,231 incidents and 3,691 citations, and October produced 8,313 incidents and 3,484 citations, he said.
A company spokesman confirmed Lockheed Martin IMS receives $70 out of each $271 citation paid in San Diego. He declined to give monthly revenues from the camera program.
San Diego is home to a Lockheed Martin IMS ticket processing center, which employs 25. Among other duties, employees work to enlarge photos of drivers’ faces and license plate numbers.
The center also processes tickets for El Cajon, the city and the county of Sacramento and a Northern California company that sends cement trucks onto a busy street. Tickets from the Silicon Valley city of Cupertino may soon be processed in San Diego, said a company spokesman.
Maddox said the San Diego office might grow.
If the legal matter goes to trial, there will be no jury, and the defendants will be grouped by the intersection in which the alleged violations occurred, Cusack said.
Lockheed Martin has been represented in court by McKenna & Cuneo LLP.
