Florida municipalities have increasingly adopted automated school-zone speed camera programs since the Legislature authorized the current enforcement framework in 2023. The goal is straightforward: reduce dangerous speeding around schools without requiring a police officer to personally stop every vehicle.
But two recent Florida traffic cases demonstrate that a photograph of a vehicle and an electronically recorded speed do not necessarily end the legal inquiry.
In State of Florida v. Rafael D. Cardoza, a Broward County traffic hearing officer dismissed a school zone speeding case after concluding that the enforcement authority failed to establish that the speed detection device had been approved by the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles.
Just days later, in State of Florida v. Lesmay Gonzalez Rives, a Lee County hearing officer entered a judgment of acquittal after determining that an officer’s testimony about the identity of the vehicle’s registered owner was inadmissible hearsay.
The cases involve two very different evidentiary problems. But together, they raise an important question for Florida’s growing automated traffic-enforcement system:
What must a municipality actually prove when a driver challenges a school-zone camera citation?
Neither decision declares Florida school-zone speed cameras illegal. Neither is a statewide appellate decision invalidating Florida’s automated enforcement statute. In fact, the Rives ruling has been appealed.
What these cases demonstrate is narrower but important: automated enforcement does not eliminate the government’s obligation to establish a violation through legally admissible evidence.
How Florida School Zone Speed Cameras Work
Florida law allows qualifying counties and municipalities to use speed detection systems to enforce certain speeding violations in school zones.
Instead of an officer standing alongside the roadway operating radar or lidar equipment, an automated system can detect the speed of a passing vehicle and capture photographic or video evidence.
A traffic enforcement officer then reviews the alleged violation. If the statutory requirements are satisfied, the registered owner can receive a notice of violation and ultimately may contest the citation.
Florida’s statutory framework addresses testing, calibration, notices, hearings, evidence, and other requirements associated with these systems.
But Cardoza presented a more fundamental question.
Even though Florida created special requirements for automated school zone speed detection systems, does the device used to determine the vehicle’s speed still have to satisfy Florida’s separate approval requirements for speed measuring devices used as evidence in court?
The Broward County hearing officer concluded that it does.
State v. Cardoza: The Challenge to the Speed Detection Device
The first case arose in Hollywood, Florida.
On April 15, 2025, at approximately 9:16 a.m., a 2016 Ford registered to Rafael D. Cardoza was recorded by the City’s school zone speed detection system in the 3500 block of Taft Street.
According to the enforcement evidence, the vehicle was traveling 42 miles per hour in a 30-mile-per-hour school zone.
A notice of violation was issued on April 17, 2025. It included photographic evidence and advised Cardoza of his options.
Cardoza did not pay the violation. A Uniform Traffic Citation was subsequently issued, and he entered a written plea of not guilty.
The defense then attacked one of the most fundamental pieces of the City’s case: the evidence establishing the vehicle’s speed.
Was the Device Approved by FLHSMV?
Cardoza filed a motion in limine seeking to exclude all speed evidence generated by the school-zone speed detection system.
His challenge relied on Florida Administrative Code Rule 15B-2.007(1), which provides that speed-measuring devices used to obtain evidence of motor vehicle speeds for use in Florida courts must be of a type approved by the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles before their use.
The City argued that Florida’s statutes governing automated school zone speed enforcement eliminated the need for that approval.
The hearing officer disagreed.
That distinction became the heart of the case.
Design Requirements Are Not Necessarily Approval Requirements
Florida law treats automated school zone speed detection systems differently from conventional radar and lidar equipment in several respects.
Section 316.1906 provides specific requirements for these systems. Among other things, the statute requires the system to have the ability to perform self tests for detection accuracy.
Those self tests must occur at least once every 30 days, and records of the results must be maintained.
The system must also undergo an independent calibration test at least once every 12 months.
Importantly, the Legislature expressly provided that a school zone speed detection system is exempt from certain design requirements applicable to radar or lidar units.
The City relied on this special statutory treatment in arguing that Department approval was unnecessary.
The hearing officer, however, focused on what the Legislature did not exempt.
The Legislature specifically exempted the systems from particular design requirements. It did not expressly exempt them from the separate requirement concerning Department approval of speed-measuring devices used to generate evidence in Florida courts.
That omission became decisive.
Courts Cannot Add an Exception the Legislature Did Not Include
The Cardoza order relied on a familiar principle of statutory construction often expressed by the Latin phrase expressio unius est exclusio alterius the expression of one thing implies the exclusion of another.
The reasoning was straightforward.
The Legislature knew how to create an exemption and expressly created one involving certain design requirements.
If lawmakers also intended to eliminate the Department’s device-approval requirement, the hearing officer reasoned that they could have included such an exemption.
The court would not insert an additional exception into the statute that the Legislature itself had not written.
That left the enforcement authority with a serious evidentiary problem.
No Showing of Device Approval Meant No Admissible Speed Evidence
The allegation was that Cardoza’s vehicle traveled 42 mph in a 30 mph school zone.
But proving that allegation depended upon the evidence generated by the automated speed detection system.
When the State sought to introduce that evidence, the hearing officer asked whether the required device approval from the Department could be established.
According to the order, the response was negative.
The hearing officer therefore concluded that without Department approval of the speed detection device, the actual speed of Cardoza’s vehicle could not be established through the evidence presented.
The speed evidence and accompanying documentation were excluded.
Without admissible evidence establishing the vehicle’s speed, the violation could not be proven.
The case was dismissed.
Why Cardoza Could Matter Beyond One Citation
The significance of Cardoza is not simply that one Florida driver successfully challenged a camera ticket.
The ruling focuses on the legal foundation underneath the evidence itself.
A municipality might possess photographs, video, calibration information and records showing that the system performed its required self-tests.
But Cardoza raises a separate question: Was the device generating the speed evidence legally approved for that evidentiary purpose in the first place?
That distinction could become important if similar arguments are raised in other jurisdictions.
However, Cardoza must be kept in its proper procedural context. It is a trial level traffic decision from Broward County. It is not a Florida Supreme Court or District Court of Appeal decision establishing a binding statewide rule.
Other courts could interpret the statutes and administrative requirements differently.
Then came Rives.
And this time, the problem was not the machine measuring the speed.
It was proving who owned the vehicle.
State v. Rives: The Camera Captured a Vehicle, But Who Owned It?
State of Florida v. Lesmay Gonzalez Rives arose from Cape Coral’s school-zone safety program.
According to the amended order, the program was operated pursuant to a contract with RedSpeed Florida, LLC.
The speed detection system was triggered by a vehicle allegedly traveling above the applicable school zone limit. The system captured an image of the rear of the vehicle and a close-up photograph of its license plate, along with information concerning the alleged violation.
A notice was sent to the vehicle’s registered owner.
Rives contested the violation, resulting in a nonjury trial.
At trial, Cape Coral Police Sergeant Patrick Taylor explained how the City determined the identity of the registered owner.
That explanation created the evidentiary issue that ultimately decided the case.
The Officer Used Florida’s DAVID Database
Sergeant Taylor testified that he reviewed the photograph generated by the camera system and identified the license plate number, make, and model of the vehicle.
He then entered the license-plate information into Florida’s Driver and Vehicle Information Database, commonly known as DAVID.
According to his testimony, the database identified Rives as the first registered owner.
The defense objected when the officer testified about the information returned by DAVID.
The argument was based on Florida’s hearsay rules.
The officer did not independently know who owned the vehicle. His knowledge came from information contained in a database.
His testimony was therefore being used to establish the truth of what that outside source reported: that Rives was the registered owner.
The hearing officer reserved ruling and asked the parties to submit legal authority.
After reviewing the cases, the court sustained the objection.
Why the DAVID Testimony Was Considered Hearsay
Florida law generally defines hearsay as an out of court statement offered to prove the truth of the matter asserted.
There are numerous exceptions to the hearsay rule, and government records can sometimes be admitted when the applicable evidentiary requirements are satisfied.
But the fact that information is stored electronically does not necessarily mean a witness can simply repeat what a computer database displayed and thereby place that information into evidence.
The Rives court discussed several Florida appellate decisions, including Kahn v. State, Holborough v. State, and Riggins v. State.
Those authorities involved related problems with witnesses attempting to establish facts by testifying about information obtained from identification documents or government databases.
In Riggins, for example, an officer used a computer to obtain vehicle information through FCIC/NCIC and then testified about what the database showed.
The appellate court determined that the testimony concerning the database result constituted hearsay. The decision also noted that certification from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles could have been obtained to establish the registration issue.
The Rives hearing officer found that reasoning more persuasive than the authority offered by the City.
A Certified Vehicle Record Was Not Introduced
This is an important distinction.
The Rives decision does not stand for the proposition that vehicle ownership can never be proven using government registration records.
Instead, the problem concerned how the ownership information was introduced in this particular proceeding.
No certified vehicle registration was introduced.
Instead, the City relied upon Sergeant Taylor’s testimony describing what DAVID told him.
The hearing officer concluded that the testimony concerning the identity of the registered owner was hearsay and that no applicable exception had been established.
The objection was sustained.
Once that evidence was excluded, the City lacked the ownership evidence upon which it had relied to connect the photographed vehicle to Rives.
The result was significant.
The hearing officer entered a judgment of acquittal.
The Rives Decision Has Been Appealed
There is another important fact readers should know before drawing broad conclusions from Rives.
The amended order states that a notice of appeal was filed June 5, 2026.
That means the legal issue may receive additional judicial review.
An appellate court could affirm the ruling, reverse it, distinguish the cases relied upon by the hearing officer, or provide different guidance concerning how registration information may be established in automated traffic enforcement proceedings.
For that reason, Rives should not be portrayed as the final statewide answer concerning DAVID evidence.
It is an important trial-level decision involving Florida’s relatively new automated enforcement system, and its appeal makes the issue particularly worth watching.
Two Cases, Two Different Problems
Viewed together, Cardoza and Rives demonstrate why an automated citation can involve considerably more than a photograph and a number showing a vehicle’s alleged speed.
Think of the evidence as a chain.
The enforcement authority may need to establish that the system was legally authorized, that applicable equipment requirements were satisfied, that required testing and calibration occurred, that the vehicle’s speed was accurately determined, that the photograph identifies the correct vehicle, that the registered owner was properly identified, and that the evidence offered to establish those facts is legally admissible.
Cardoza challenged the machine.
Rives challenged the evidentiary connection to the owner.
In each case, the failure of a critical evidentiary link prevented the enforcement authority from obtaining a judgment against the defendant.
Cardoza Was About the Speed Evidence
The central question in Cardoza was whether the speed-measuring device used to generate evidence had received the approval required for evidentiary use.
The Legislature expressly exempted automated school zone systems from certain design requirements.
The hearing officer concluded that the Legislature did not similarly exempt them from the Department’s approval requirement.
Because approval of the device could not be established, the speed evidence was excluded.
Without evidence establishing speed, there was no speeding case.
Rives Was About Ownership Evidence
The problem in Rives arose one step later.
The camera had photographed a vehicle and its license plate.
But the City still needed admissible evidence connecting the vehicle to the registered owner against whom the citation was being pursued.
The officer obtained that information from DAVID and testified about what the database displayed.
The hearing officer ruled that testimony inadmissible hearsay.
Because no certified registration or other admissible ownership evidence sufficient to establish that point was introduced, the City lost a critical part of its case.
These Decisions Do Not Mean Florida School Zone Cameras Are Illegal
This point cannot be overstated.
Neither Cardoza nor Rives declares Florida’s automated school zone enforcement statute unconstitutional or invalid.
Neither decision abolishes school zone camera programs.
Neither establishes binding precedent for every Florida court.
They concern the evidence presented in two particular contested citations.
Florida law continues to authorize qualifying local governments to operate school zone speed detection programs subject to statutory requirements.
The better way to understand these cases is this:
Statutory authority to operate a camera program and the ability to prove an individual violation in court are two different things.
A municipality can have authority to operate the program while still losing an individual case because it failed to establish a necessary fact through admissible evidence.
That distinction is central to both decisions.
Technology Does Not Automatically Make Evidence Admissible
These cases also illustrate a broader issue that extends well beyond speed cameras.
Modern enforcement increasingly depends upon technology.
Radar devices measure speed electronically. Cameras capture license plates. Computers process images. Databases identify registered owners. Software stores records. Automated systems generate notices.
But the method used to collect information does not necessarily determine whether that information is admissible in court.
When challenged, courts may still have to consider traditional evidentiary questions involving authentication, hearsay, foundation, certification, statutory compliance, testing, calibration and reliability.
Cardoza and Rives are particularly interesting because each attacks a different part of that technological process.
One asks whether the machine’s output can be used.
The other asks whether information retrieved from another computer system can be repeated by a witness to prove ownership.
Those are traditional evidence questions arising from very modern enforcement technology.
School Safety and Due Process Are Not Opposing Goals
None of this diminishes the importance of reducing dangerous speeding around Florida schools.
School zones exist for an obvious reason. Children, parents, teachers, crossing guards and other pedestrians can be particularly vulnerable to speeding vehicles.
Automated enforcement is one method local governments have chosen to address that danger.
But supporting school safety does not require abandoning ordinary evidentiary protections.
A reliable enforcement program should be capable of accomplishing both objectives.
Equipment should comply with applicable legal requirements.
Testing and calibration should be performed as required.
Records should be maintained.
Ownership information should be established through admissible evidence.
And motorists who contest citations should receive the process Florida law provides.
Those protections can strengthen confidence in automated enforcement rather than undermine it.
What These Decisions Could Mean for Florida Municipalities
If other courts agree with the reasoning in Cardoza, municipalities facing contested citations may need to be prepared to establish more than periodic testing and calibration.
They may also have to demonstrate that the particular speed measuring equipment satisfies any applicable Department approval requirements.
That could make documentation concerning the specific equipment used increasingly important.
The Rives issue presents a different procedural concern.
A police officer may be able to determine vehicle ownership almost instantly through a government database for investigative or administrative purposes.
Courtroom evidence presents another question.
If the ownership information is challenged, the municipality may need to establish that information through an admissible record or another method permitted by Florida’s Evidence Code rather than relying solely upon an officer’s testimony describing what appeared on a database screen.
The Rives court’s discussion of certified DHSMV records demonstrates why the distinction between obtaining information and proving that information in court can matter.
Could These Cases Affect Other Florida Camera Tickets?
Potentially, but it is much too early to say how broadly these rulings will influence automated enforcement.
Cardoza could become more important if defendants raise similar equipment approval arguments in other jurisdictions and other courts agree with the Broward County hearing officer’s statutory interpretation.
Rives could become more significant depending upon the outcome of its appeal.
Municipalities can also change their procedures.
If a court identifies a missing evidentiary foundation, the enforcement authority may respond by supplying additional records or changing how evidence is introduced in future proceedings.
That is one reason these decisions should not be interpreted as creating an automatic defense to every school zone camera citation.
The precise equipment, records, testimony, jurisdiction, procedural history and evidence in an individual case can matter.
What Should Be Examined in a Contested School Zone Camera Citation?
The two cases nevertheless identify several issues that may deserve scrutiny when a citation is challenged.
Among them are the particular speed detection equipment used, applicable approval requirements, self-test records, annual calibration records, photographs of the vehicle and license plate, the method used to establish vehicle ownership, authentication of registration information, hearsay issues, statutory notice requirements and the evidence offered by the enforcement authority at the hearing.
None of those issues automatically defeats a citation.
But Cardoza and Rives demonstrate why assuming that “the camera caught it” may oversimplify what must actually be established once a citation reaches a contested court proceeding.
The Difference Between a Camera Record and Courtroom Proof
There is an especially important distinction between information and evidence.
An automated system may contain information showing that a particular vehicle traveled at a particular speed.
A database may contain information identifying the owner of that vehicle.
But when a contested case reaches court, the question becomes whether the information can be converted into legally admissible evidence.
That requires a proper evidentiary foundation.
The difference can seem technical until it determines the outcome of a case.
In Cardoza, the speed recorded by the machine became the disputed evidence.
In Rives, the ownership information returned by the database became the disputed evidence.
Both cases demonstrate why the reliability and admissibility of automated evidence are likely to remain important as Florida continues using technology for traffic enforcement.
What Florida Drivers Should Not Take From These Cases
These decisions do not mean someone who receives a school-zone camera notice should simply ignore it.
Ignoring a citation or notice can allow the statutory enforcement process to continue and may result in additional consequences.
They also do not establish that every camera system uses unapproved equipment or that every municipality introduces ownership evidence in the same manner as the City did in Rives.
A person contesting a citation must still comply with applicable deadlines and procedures.
The cases instead show why someone examining a contested citation may want to look beyond the photograph itself and determine how the government intends to prove each necessary part of its case.
Why These Two Cases Are More Important Together
Separately, Cardoza and Rives could be viewed as narrow evidentiary decisions.
Together, they reveal something more interesting about automated enforcement.
A camera citation depends upon multiple pieces of information working together.
The system must determine speed.
The system must identify a vehicle.
The license plate must be connected to an owner.
The relevant records must be introduced.
And when any of those steps is challenged, the government still has to satisfy Florida law.
Cardoza shows what can happen when the challenge is directed at the device generating the speed evidence.
Rives shows what can happen when the challenge is directed at the evidence identifying the owner.
That makes these cases early examples of a legal issue Florida courts are likely to encounter more frequently:
How do traditional rules of evidence apply when more and more of the government’s evidence is generated, stored and retrieved by machines?
Frequently Asked Questions About Florida School Zone Speed Cameras
Are school-zone speed cameras legal in Florida?
Florida law authorizes qualifying counties and municipalities to use speed detection systems to enforce certain speeding violations in school zones when statutory requirements are satisfied. Cardoza and Rives did not invalidate that authority.
Did Cardoza declare Florida school-zone cameras illegal?
No. The hearing officer addressed whether the speed evidence generated by the particular system could be admitted when the required Department approval of the device could not be established.
The case was dismissed because the speed evidence necessary to establish the violation was excluded.
What happened in Rives?
The City attempted to establish the identity of the vehicle’s registered owner through an officer’s testimony about information retrieved from Florida’s DAVID database.
The hearing officer ruled that testimony was hearsay and did not fall within an established exception.
Without admissible evidence establishing the registered owner, the defendant received a judgment of acquittal.
Could certified registration records make a difference?
Potentially. The Rives order discussed Florida authority recognizing certification from the Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles as a method that could be used to establish registration information.
No certified registration was introduced in Rives.
Whether a particular record is admissible still depends upon the applicable evidentiary rules and circumstances.
Is Rives being appealed?
Yes. The amended order states that a notice of appeal was filed on June 5, 2026.
That makes it particularly important not to characterize the hearing officer’s decision as the final statewide rule governing DAVID evidence in school-zone camera cases.
Does Cardoza mean every Florida camera ticket can be dismissed because the device is unapproved?
No.
The decision concerned the evidence presented in that particular case. Different jurisdictions may use different equipment or possess different approval documentation, and other courts may interpret the governing law differently.
Can a driver simply ignore a school-zone camera notice because of these decisions?
No. These decisions do not automatically invalidate other citations. Anyone receiving a notice should pay attention to the deadlines and procedures stated in the notice and applicable Florida law.
Final Thoughts
State v. Cardoza and State v. Rives show what can happen when twenty-first-century automated enforcement encounters traditional rules governing courtroom evidence.
In Cardoza, the machine generated a speed, but the enforcement authority still had to establish that the evidence produced by that device was legally authorized for use in court.
The hearing officer concluded that it had not done so.
In Rives, a government database identified the registered owner, but the City still had to introduce that information through legally admissible evidence.
The hearing officer concluded that the officer’s testimony describing the database result was inadmissible hearsay.
Those are different issues, but they lead to the same fundamental principle:
A camera may generate the evidence, but it does not automatically prove the case.
As Florida municipalities continue using automated school-zone enforcement, questions involving device approval, testing, calibration, authentication, ownership records, hearsay and evidentiary foundations are likely to receive continued attention.
These questions should not be confused with opposition to school safety.
Protecting children from dangerous speeding is important.
So is ensuring that when the government imposes a penalty, the violation can be established through evidence Florida law permits a court to consider.
For lawyers, municipalities and Florida motorists, Cardoza and Rives provide an early look at how those two principles will have to coexist as automated enforcement becomes a larger part of Florida traffic law.
Today’s Insight
“Facts are stubborn things.”
— John Adams
Technology can collect extraordinary amounts of information, but information and legally admissible proof are not necessarily the same thing. Cardoza and Rives demonstrate that regardless of how sophisticated an enforcement system becomes, the evidence supporting a citation must still withstand legal scrutiny.