explaining that officer’s testimony that he had been trained to operate radar and test it for accuracy is sufficient predicate to support admission of radar evidence
How later courts described this case
- explaining that officer’s testimony that he had been trained to operate radar and test it for accuracy is sufficient predicate to support admission of radar evidence
- holding that the testimony of the patrolmen who were trained to operate and test the device was sufficient for the jury to find the appellant was speeding
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
MORRISON, Judge
(dissenting).
We are once again met with the problem which confronted us in Hill v. State, 158 Tex.Cr.R. 313 , 256 S.W.2d 93 , regarding scientific tests. In the case at bar, the accuracy of the radar unit depended upon the accuracy of a tuning fork or the speedometer of the patrol car. Neither was shown to have been checked by anyone.
In Holley v. State, Tex.Cr.App., 366 S.W.2d 570 , which reached this Court last year, there was proof that the speedometer had been calibrated for accuracy either at Austin, Corpus Christi or San Antonio at least every three months, plus the fact that the tuning fork had been brought to Austin and checked for accuracy by technicians.
No such proof as to either the speedometer or the tuning fork appears in the the case at bar. Attention is called to a portion of our opinion in Wilson v. State, 168 Tex.Cr.R. 439 , 328 S.W.2d 311 , where *888 in we said, “Patrolman Spellman testified that he oversaw the calibration of the speedometer of the patrol car in March, that it was calibrated in June and no correction was needed * *
I would reverse this conviction because of the insufficiency of the evidence to show that the scientific device, which furnished the only proof upon which this conviction may be sustained, was accurate.