State v. McDonough
| Decision Date | 10 January 1975 |
| Docket Number | No. 44796,44796 |
| Citation | 302 Minn. 468,225 N.W.2d 259 |
| Court | Minnesota Supreme Court |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Michael J. McDONOUGH, Appellant. |
John E. Dauhney, St. Paul, for appellant.
R. Scott Davies, City Atty., A. Keith Hanzel and Stephen C. Aldrich, Asst. City Attys., St. Paul, for respondent.
Considered and decided by the court without oral argument.
Defendant was convicted of speeding after a trial without a jury in St. Paul municipal court. The evidence against defendant consisted of testimony by the arresting officer that the radar speedmeter which he operated clocked defendant's car at 56 miles per hour in a 30-mile-per-hour zone, and that on the basis of his personal observation, he estimated defendant's speed in excess of 50 miles per hour. On this appeal from judgment of conviction, defendant contends that there was insufficient evidence that the officer had properly tested the accuracy of the radar speedmeter and that absent such testing, there was insufficient evidence to support the verdict. We affirm.
In claiming that there was insufficient evidence that the radar speedmeter was properly tested for accuracy, defendant relies upon State v. Gerdes, 291 Minn. 353, 191 N.W.2d 428 (1971). In that case this court, reversing a speeding conviction based solely upon a radar speedmeter reading, held that the court below had properly taken judicial notice of the reliability of radar speedmeters but that the court had erred in finding the defendant guilty because the prosecution had not sufficiently shown that the speedmeter reading upon which the conviction was based was accurate. This court stated that the requisite conditions for proving the accuracy of a radar speedmeter were:
'(1) The officer reading the device must have adequate training and experience in its operation;
'(2) The officer should testify to the manner in which the unit was set up and the conditions under which it was used;
'(3) A showing must be made that the machine was operated with a minimum possibility of distortion from such external interferences as noise, neon lights, high-tension powerlines, high-power radio stations, and other similar influences; and
'(4) On the occasion when the machine is set up, its accuracy must be tested in some external manner by a reliably calibrated tuning fork or by an actual test run, using another vehicle with an accurately calibrated speedometer.' 291 Minn. 359, ...
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