Man Busted For Speeding Via The Internet
from the photographs-and-the-internet dept
People often seem to think that if they got away with doing something illegal when it happened, they can write about it and show pictures online without anyone tracking them down. In the past, for example, we had stories of a woman arrested for indecent exposure after she posted photos of herself appearing nude at a bar and of the kids who were arrested after posting a video of them firebombing a warehouse. However, it still is a bit surprising to find out that someone got arrested for speeding in the same manner. Raekwon writes "A young Croat who posted a photograph of himself speeding on a motorbike on the Web was tracked down and fined by the police. The 28-year-old, identified only as D.M., took a photo of his speedometer showing 170 km (100 mph) on a back road in northern Croatia and then put it on the Web site of his local municipality. Police found him three days later." The article also notes that the police discovered his motorcycle was illegally imported and not registered. So, as a public service reminder, if you must do something stupid and illegal, please wait until after the statute of limitations to post images of it online. However, one of these days someone is going to claim that the photos were faked. Now, that will be an interesting case...Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Speeding?
a motorcycle. They should have given him
a reward instead of a fine!
How embarassing would that be.
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Re:
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Re: Re:
You're the idiot. Anonymous Coward was pointing out the mistake in the article, "170 km" should have been "170 km/h"
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Re: km vs m
so kilometers/hour is still a speed
your point?
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check this url out
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DURRRRRRRRRR...
You're free to go.
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Re:
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Stupid is as stupid does
To the first post, I guess you top 200km/h on your motorbike every day. Sign you donor card recently? Although at those speeds, I doubt anything would be left of you to donate.
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Re: Stupid is as stupid does
gone very very fast at Louden. I love my suicycle
and never want to smash it up.
I don't have a donor card, that's for fresh meat.
I hope you've filled on out though, with the superior
intellect you posses it would be a boon to science.
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Uh yea...
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Re: Uh yea...
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Re: Uh yea...
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Already been done.
Already been done with R. Kelly.
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No, it doesn't. The fifth amendment says that you do not have to incriminate yourself. However, you wave that right when you choose to incriminate yourself by posting the pictures online.
Basically, the fifth amendment says that if you had the photos but kept them secret, you would never have to give them to the police if you didn't want to.
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I doubt they would bother.
They have pretty strong circumstantial evidence for the speeding, but if it went to court, the prosecutor would still have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the photo wasn't faked. They almost certainly can, but what's the point? They probably have enough on him to take his bike, take his license, fine him, and make him pay sales tax, excise tax, import tax, interest, and penalties.
If he's a first offender and has a good lawyer, he may be allowed to plead to the speeding ticket and keep his license.
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Re: I doubt they would bother.
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Police arnt innocent either!!!
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Re: Police races kids
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now that everything is fixed in croatia...
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Pictures...
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Count Porkula...
Right. So the dead guy wiped across 400 yards of asphalt among scattered shards of steel and rubber can rest easy with the thought that it wasn't his bike, but the 2002 GMC Envoy that pulled out in front of him, that was dangerous.
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Re: Count Porkula...
He'll Rest In Peace.
Big difference....
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Re: Re: Count Porkula...
Pieces.
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Other Drivers
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Re: Other Drivers
You're deluded. Unless it's a no-fault state, precisely 50% of the time it is someone else's mistake.
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What will apply is the Corpus Delicti rule ("body of the crime" rule) of criminal prosecution in the USA. The CD rule simply says that an unsworn confession outside of court cannot be the sole basis of prosecution for a crime without any other extrinsic evidence that a crime was ever committed.
If you tell police "I robbed the Main St. Bank yesterday", you can't be prosecuted for bank robbery unless some other evidence exists that the Main St. Bank was actually robbed yesterday.
In this case the only evidence that speed law was even violated is the confession. Therefore no prosecution, at least in the USA.
If someone else observed the incident and came forward, then a prosecution could occur, and the confession would be good evidence against the speeder guy.
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Re:
To quote the article:
Sorry, but taking a picture of yourself comitting a crime and posting it on the internet goes a bit beyond mere "unsworn confession." He made an (implicit) public confession and then provided photographic evidence.
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Stop Speeding
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