Filed 12/18/08

SUPERIOR COURT OF CALIFORNIA

COUNTY OF ORANGE

APPELLATE DIVISION

THE PEOPLE, ) CASE NO. 30-2008-00080937

)

)

Plaintiff and ) JUDGMENT ON APPEAL

Respondent, ) from the

) SUPERIOR COURT

v. ) of

) ORANGE COUNTY

THOMAS JAMES FISCHETTI, ) CENTRAL JUSTICE CENTER

)

Defendant and )

Appellant. ) HON. GLENN MONDO

) COMMISSIONER

Based upon evidence obtained via an automated photographic enforcement system, appellant was convicted of failing to stop for a red signal, in violation of Vehicle Code section 21453, subdivision(a). The record discloses that the City of Santa Ana (the City)sought to comply with warning requirements of Vehicle Code section 21455.5, subdivision(b)(section 21455.5(b)), by issuing warning notices only for the first photographic enforcement cameras installed within the City.

The trial court’s determination that the City complied with section 21455.5(b) is inconsistent with the structure and purpose of the statute as a whole. Because section 21455.5, subdivision(a) provides that “the intersection” may be equipped with an automated enforcement system, the term “automated enforcement system” in section 21455.5(b), cannot refer to a municipality’s overall automated enforcement plan, but must instead refer to each individual automated system operated at an intersection within the municipal jurisdiction.

The “dictionary” definition of the word “system” (see, e.g., Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th ed. 1993) p. 1194) does not comport with the trial court’s analysis and conclusion, in the absence of any evidence that the sets of equipment located variously at intersections throughout the City are somehow interactive with, or dependent upon, each other. If such systemic interaction were necessary, operation of automated enforcement equipment at a lone intersection would be impossible. From the perspective of the motorists for whom the statutory requirements were intended to provide protection, it would not make sense for the geographic scope of the 30-day warning period to be determined arbitrarily by the size of the municipality operating the automated enforcement system.

The Legislature in 2003 rejected an amendment to Senate Bill No. 780 (2003-2004 Reg. Sess.) which would have expressly provided for the warning period of section 21455.5(b) to occur “during the first 30 days after the first recording unit is installed,” and the omission of this language from the amendments enacted in that year is indicative of a legislative intention to avoid linkage of the 30—day warning period with a municipality’s initial installation of automated enforcement equipment. (City of Santa Cruz v. Municipal Court (1989) 49 Cal.3d 74, 88-89.) Because under section 21455.5(b) compliance is required “[p]rior to issuing citations under this section,” the City exceeded its jurisdiction by commencing the prosecution of appellant without having complied with the warning requirements.

The judgment is reversed, with direction that the charge be dismissed.

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STEVEN L. PERK, Judge