City of Rochester v. Torpey
| Decision Date | 01 December 1953 |
| Citation | 204 Misc. 1023 |
| Parties | City of Rochester, Respondent,<BR>v.<BR>Eugene P. Torpey, Appellant. |
| Court | New York District Court |
John P. Lomenzo for appellant.
Clarence J. Henry, District Attorney (John A. Mastrella of counsel), for respondent.
O'MARA, J.
The defendant appeals from a judgment of the Criminal Branch of the City Court of Rochester convicting him of a violation of section 70-40 of the Public Safety Ordinances of the City of Rochester and which said section limits the speed of automobiles upon the streets of the city of Rochester.
The defendant advances two grounds upon which his conviction should be reversed. First, that the evidence presented by the People was insufficient as a matter of law to sustain the conviction and second, that the information charging the defendant with the violation in question was legally insufficient due to the fact that it was sworn to by the arresting officer before a commissioner of deeds rather than before one of the City Court Judges sitting as a magistrate or before the clerk or a deputy clerk of the Criminal Branch of the City Court of Rochester.
The arrest in question was made by the so-called "radar unit" of the Rochester police department. The said unit consists of two motor vehicles each manned by two police officers of the City of Rochester and both equipped with two-way radio mechanism. The so-called radar car is also equipped with an electrical device purporting to record the speed of automobiles as they pass through a beam of electrical energy generated by a transmitter which is a part of the radar equipment. The radar equipment has a speed indicator upon which the needle registers the speed of the automobile as it approaches, passes and proceeds beyond the location of the radar car. The People proved that at the time the defendant's automobile passed through the electrical beam of the radar car, the radar speed indicator registered forty-three miles per hour.
It was further established by the testimony of three of the police officers who manned the cars going to make up the radar unit that in their opinion the defendant's automobile at the time of his arrest was traveling approximately forty-five miles per hour. This evidence in and of itself was legally sufficient to warrant the finding of guilt by the trial court.
The People went further with its proof to establish the guilt of the defendant. It was established by the testimony of the same police officers that comparative tests were made on the same morning and prior to the defendant's arrest of the speedometer on the nonradar police car with the speed indicator of the radar car. These tests were made on at least three different occasions and on each occasion it was testified to by the police officer who witnessed the speed indicator on...
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...30 Wash.L.Rev. 49 (1955).See also 'Arrest by Radar Speedmeters,' Hough, 24 Mo.L.Rev. 196 (1959).Contra: People of City of Rochester v. Torpey, 1953, 204 Misc. 1023, 128 N.Y.S.2d 864; People of City of Buffalo v. Beck, 1954, 205 Misc. 757, 130 N.Y.S.2d 354; People v. Offermann, 204 Misc. 769......
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