Ratting out someone, even a creep who really deserves the exposure, is not usually done before an adoring throng, but furtively, behind closed doors—because people generally despise snitches. When Vanity Fair magazine revealed former FBI agent Mark Felt as “Deep Throat” last fall, old passions flared anew. Virtually everyone, even those who defended Richard Nixon to the bitter end, conceded that Felt did the country a service by helping expose serious lawbreaking at the highest levels of government. Yet many of the same people cannot bring themselves to call Felt a hero, because he snitched.
Our collective aversion to snitching explains why Minneapolitans reacted with palpable resentment to “photo cops”—cameras placed at intersections notorious for red-light running—and cheered when Hennepin County District Court Judge Mark Wernick, in City of Minneapolis v. Daniel Kuhlman, said that Minneapolis failed to use them legally. Kuhlman, who received a photo cop ticket for running a red light, hired attorney Howard Bass to fight it because, according to Kuhlman, he was not driving his car at the time.
When photo cops were installed last summer, many of us railed against them as another Big Brother encroachment on our right to ride anonymously along life’s freeways. No one seriously disputes that the photo cops have significantly reduced red-light running—according to some reports, by close to twenty percent—at the dozen or so intersections where they were installed. And, in these dire, budget-crunched times, the photo cops helped generate close to a million dollars in revenue for cash-strapped Minneapolis. But what mattered, and what ticked off so many people, was that the photo cops never blinked. They were invariably right, and just like a true snitch, they hid behind the protective cloak of anonymity.
While the technology behind the photo cop is state of the art, the concept was simple and logical. Cars running lights were photographed; the driver was identified by license plate number and received a ticket in the mail along with “the evidence”—a series of photographs showing the car in its compromising position. The ticketee was presumed guilty and typically fined $164 for the violation, unless he could prove (1) he no longer owned the car; (2) the car was stolen at the time of the violation; or (3) he was not driving the car at the time of the violation—in which case he must “nominate” (i.e. rat out) the actual driver.
According to Judge Wernick, the problem with the Minneapolis ordinance was that it took the presumption of innocence that girds our criminal justice system and turned it on its head. Instead of the government having to prove that someone actually committed the alleged crime, it was up to the person accused to prove that he did not do it. Minnesotans accused of running a red light anywhere else in the state—even in Minneapolis, in cases where a photo cop did not do the ticketing—did not start their cases against the government in such a deep procedural hole.
Did Daniel Kuhlman run a red light on August 17, 2005? The answer to that question turns out to be irrelevant. What is really at stake in the City of Minneapolis v. Daniel Kuhlman is reaffirming who has the burden of proving the answer to that question beyond a reasonable doubt. Judge Wernick got it absolutely right: Minneapolis cannot dump that responsibility on the accused. At the same time, Wernick was careful not to unilaterally condemn this sort of law enforcement tool. Photo cops can and do work effectively and legally in places like Oregon and Delaware. Drivers snapped in those states are not charged with crimes. Instead, they pay civil fines, which usually do not place their drivers’ licenses at risk, nor leave them with the consequences of a criminal conviction—like the potential loss of one’s license and higher insurance rates.
No one likes to get caught doing things he knows are wrong. And very few people like snitches, be they human or electronic, even when they save us from our own stupidity. However, we are far less likely to resent—and may even come to grudgingly accept—electronic surveillance like photo cops if the government, in its zeal to encourage us to do the right thing, does not do it by gutting our constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
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