People v. Abdallah
| Decision Date | 11 April 1967 |
| Docket Number | Gen. No. M51766 |
| Citation | 82 Ill.App.2d 312,226 N.E.2d 408 |
| Parties | PEOPLE of the State of Illinois, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Bahige N. ABDALLAH, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | United States Appellate Court of Illinois |
Redman & Shearer, St. Charles, for appellant, Michael F. O'Brien, St. Charles, of counsel.
John J. Stamos, State's Atty., Chicago, for appellee, Elmer C. Kissane, Ronald Magnes, Robert Novelle, Asst. State's Attys., of counsel.
Defendant was found guilty at a bench trial of violating the posted speed laws of the State of Illinois in operating his automobile 14 miles per hour in excess thereof. He was assessed a fine of $10 and costs of the suit in the sum of $5. He appeals.
State Police Officer F. J. Schmelzer testified that during the early morning on May 28, 1966, he set up a radar device on his patrol car on a section of highway in Cook County bearing a posted speed limit of 65 miles per hour. The officer tested the radar device by means of a tuning fork which was cut to read 65 miles per hour. The frequency emission, or pitch, of the tuning fork, when struck, activated the needle on the radar device which in turn indicated a reading of 65 miles per hour. At approximately 3:40 that morning defendant's automobile passed through the field of influence generated by the officer's radar device and caused the meter to read 79 miles per hour. Defendant was pursued, arrested and given a citation for speeding.
The officer further testified that he had one-half day training in the operation of the radar device with a fellow officer and that he had some five and one-half years on-the-job experience with radar equipment of the type used on the night in question prior to defendant's arrest. The officer stated that the tuning fork test was the only means used by him to determine the accuracy of the radar device. The device was tested in this manner immediately before the defendant's automobile drove through its zone of influence, resulting in a reading of 65 miles per hour. It was similarly tested several times later that night and on each occasion the meter showed a reading of 65 miles per hour.
The court denied a defense motion for judgment in defendant's favor made during the State's case in chief; the motion was renewed after the State rested its case. The grounds of the motion were that the 'prosecution had failed to prove the accuracy of the radar by failure to submit expert evidence of its scientific reliability, and that there had been an improper foundation set down before the admission into evidence of the reading on the (radar) graph.' The motion was denied and the defendant was found guilty. The defendant did not offer any testimony.
Defendant maintains on this appeal that the trial court improperly took judicial notice of the application of the scientific principles of radar to the accurate measurement of speed, or, in the alternative, that the operator of the radar unit was not properly qualified to testify to the accuracy and operation of the instrument in that the accuracy of the instrument could not have been established solely by means of a single tuning fork which was itself untested for accuracy.
The term 'radar' is derived from the phrase 'radio detection and ranging.' The true radar device is that developed and in use by the military which determines the range, direction and speed of a target object. It operates on a pulse, or constant interval principle, a beam of short electromagnetic waves which are reflected from the target object. The 'radar' device presently in common use by law enforcement agencies for the determination of speeds of moving vehicles, on the other hand, operates on the Doppler principle, that is, the emission of a continuous electromagnetic wave which enables the speed of a target object to be determined by measuring the difference in frequency between the wave emitted from the radar device and the wave reflected from the object. Kopper, The Scientific Reliability of Radar Speedmeters, 33 N.C.L.Rev. 343. It is presently so well settled that the Doppler principle is an accurate means of determining the speed of a moving object that a court may take judicial notice thereof; and expert testimony is unnecessary to establish the usefulness of the method. City of East Cleveland v. Ferell, 168 Ohio St. 298, 154 N.E.2d 630; State v. Dantonio, 18 N.J. 570, 115 A.2d 35, 49 A.L.R.2d 460; People v. Magri, 3 N.Y.2d 562, ...
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