As you will recall from reading earlier posts on this website, the police must be in properly marked cars to stop you if they are primarily on duty to enforce traffic laws.
But what if one car used in stopping you is marked and the other was not?
In the case of Dayton v. Adams,[1] the Ohio Supreme Court examined a case wherein two police cars were involved in stopping a speeder. An unmarked police car clocked the suspect on radar, and a marked “chase car” stopped the suspect. The Ohio Supreme Court ruled that the officer in the unmarked car was incompetent to testify. The Court reasoned that if an officer stops, assists in a stop, or participates in a stop, then he must be in a marked car or he will be incompetent to testify.
However, if you have already been pulled over by the police in a marked vehicle, and a second officer arrives to assist in an unmarked vehicle (perhaps the second officer is on his way to work in his own private car), then the fact that the second vehicle was unmarked will not make the second officer incompetent to testify.[2]
[1] Dayton v. Adams (1967) 9 Ohio St.2d 89.
[2] State v. Huffman, 2001 Ohio App. LEXIS 3470 (August 8, 2001) Wayne Co. App. No. 00CA0084, unreported.
