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 one can only identify them from close up. For instance, in the case of City of South Euclid v. Varasso-Burgess,[1] the police were using a vehicle of the following description:
Three photographs of the vehicle, taken prior to trial during daylight hours from a distance of several feet, depict a one-tone, light grey, standard four door Ford passenger sedan with a small blue light mounted on the roof. The light grey passenger car contains, in white letters, the word “police” on the right front quarter panel.
Further, the police cruiser differed from the normal police cruisers used by the department:
the vehicle used for traffic detail was not like the City’s seven or eight squad cars which are painted in sharply contrasting black and white colors. These squad cars have red, white, and blue lights on top and a colorful red, white, blue, and black South Euclid Police badge on the front doors.[2]
Lastly, the police officer (Officer Montgomery) testified that there were designs on the door of the car. But these designs did not appear in photographs taken of the car and provided to the trial court:
Montgomery testified that the front doors of the vehicle contain the following inscription: “City of South Euclid.” In photograph Exhibit 3 Montgomery circled the inscription containing letters which are either so small or so light, or both, that they are invisible or at least undecipherable to the naked eye. The body of the vehicle contains no insignia or other markings of any kind. The front license plate bears four letters “SEPD” and the rear plate “1-800-GRAB-DUI.” [3]
The trial court found that the car was sufficiently distinctive to satisfy the distinctive markings requirement of the statute and Evid. R. 601(C ). But the Court of Appeals disagreed. It found that:
As noted above, the vehicle used for traffic detail in this case was a standard Ford passenger sedan painted in subdued neutral colors — the vehicle is light grey and bears similarly colored white letters, which blend together with little or no discernible difference. The size and positioning of the letters further detract from their visibility. The letters below the front door handle, which purportedly spell “City of South Euclid,” are less distinct and smaller than the letters on the name plate on the vehicle. The municipal judge stated she could read the letters on the photographs although they are not discernible to this Court. The letters used to spell “police” above the left front wheel well are also approximately the same size as the letters on the front license plate.
A fair application of R.C. 4549.13 in this case reveals that the traffic detail vehicle was not “marked in some distinctive manner.” The photographs, taken from a close-up distance of several feet during daylight hours, demonstrate the markings do not distinguish the vehicle from an ordinary passenger car. The appearance of a light grey vehicle, marked with only similarly colored small white letters for identification, does not provide fair notice that the passenger car is a police vehicle. The light on top of the vehicle does not help satisfy the distinctive marking requirement because the light is independently mandated by statute. We note that even if an observer discerned the law enforcement character of the vehicle from the light on top, the vehicle appears at most to belong to a private security guard rather than a public law enforcement officer acting under color of law.[4]
The Court of Appeals considered it important that the car did not match the other police cars used by the City of Euclid. It was also missing the large police badge that the public has come to recognize as the indicia of a police vehicle. The Court of Appeals further reasoned that:
By prohibiting unauthorized individuals from displaying police emblems on motor vehicles, the General Assembly has specifically recognized that such law enforcement emblems are distinctive markings. R.C. 2913.44.1. Although not all public law enforcement vehicles are required to bear such symbols, without such an emblem the remaining markings on the vehicle do not serve to distinguish the vehicle from an ordinary passenger car in this case. R.C. 4945.13 was enacted by the General Assembly to prevent precisely such camouflage of traffic control vehicles. Id. at 8-9
If you need representation against drunk driving charges, you can call me at 614.580.4316. I don’t charge for initial consultations to see if I can help you. If you decide you want to hire me after we speak, then we can go from there on what it will cost.
