Sometimes police officers wear some pretty outrageous get ups. Some of them wear SWAT style outfits, camouflage, blacked out ninja outfits, etc. But there are no statutory or regulatory requirements regarding what a police officer’s uniform must look like, with the exception of Ohio Administrative Code 4501:2-5 which outlines the uniform requirements for Ohio Highway… Read More »
If the police officer who pulled you over was primarily on duty for traffic violations, then, unless he is in proper uniform or in a properly marked car, the cannot testify against you in court. Many police departments have tried to get around this law by marking their cars in an indistinct fashion so that… Read More »
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]… Read More »
In Ohio, the answer is no. If the police catch you by using a spotter plane (usually timing you from two designated marks on the highway and then applying a mathematical formula to determine your speed) then the officer in the spotter plane who testifies against you in trial is not prohibited from doing so… Read More »
The Fifth Appellate District has ruled that the statutes and Evidentiary Rules mentioned above only apply to trial testimony against the Defendant. If the Defendant loses on his motion to suppress, and then pleads no contest, then no error has been committed if the police never actually testified in trial against the suspect.[1] This seems… Read More »
As you know from reading earlier posts on this site, if the arresting officer wants to be competent to testify against the suspect, the officer must be in the proper uniform of the day and must be in a marked police cruiser. But what actions by such officers constitute arrests? The case law is fraught… Read More »
The answer in Ohio is: “maybe.” the rule in Ohio is that in order for a police officer to be competent to testify against you in a court of law, if he was primarily on duty for the purpose of enforcing traffic laws, then he must be in the proper uniform of the day and… Read More »
In Ohio, the answer to this question is “maybe.” The first thing that should be noted is that for the officer to be found incompetent to testify, he must be out of uniform or in an unmarked car while he is Exclusively or Primarily On Duty for the purpose of enforcing the traffic laws. In… Read More »
The Ohio Rules of Evidence, specifically Evid. R. 601(C ) describes persons incompetent to testify in court proceedings. One of these incompetents is: An officer, while on duty for the exclusive or main purpose of enforcing traffic laws, arresting or assisting in the arrest of a person charged with a traffic violation punishable as a… Read More »
Ohio law requires its peace officers and highway patrol officers to drive around in marked cars and wear distinctive uniforms if they want to enforce the traffic laws of the State of Ohio. According to the Supreme Court, it was the intent of the General Assembly, in part, when it adopted the statutes, to curb… Read More »