Written by A court must have both personal and subject matter jurisdiction to render a valid judgment. Peterson v. Jacobson, 2 Ariz.App. 593, 595, 411 P.2d 31, 33 (App. 1966). Subject matter jurisdiction may never be waived. State ex rel. Baumert v. Municipal Court of Phoenix, 124 Ariz. 543, 545, 606 P.2d 33, 35 (App. Div.1 1979). Moreover, challenges to subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any stage of the proceedings. Rojas v. Kimble, 89 Ariz. 276, 279, 361 P.2d 403, 406 (1961).
In a civil traffic case, subject matter jurisdiction is established by means of a valid citation, certifying that the signing individual has reasonable grounds to believe, and does believe, that the named individual committed the violation.
The law sets this requirement in the Arizona Revised Statutes. A.R.S. § 28-1561(A) provides: “Uniform traffic complaint forms need not be sworn to if they contain a form of certification by the issuing officer in substance as follows: ‘I hereby certify that I have reasonable grounds to believe and do believe that the person named herein committed the offense or civil violation described herein contrary to law.’”
The problem with photo radar tickets is that they are computer generated, with a computer generated signature, attached to language that seems to meet the requirements of the statute. The courts have held that this is not enough.
“Clearly, the rules … do not contemplate a computer certifying its own documents. While Barckley does suggest that a ‘pen-and-ink’ signature may be superfluous, it is only in circumstances where some human involvement in the certification process can be inferred from the face of the document. Where, as here, the record is barren of facts from which we may infer that the intent to certify is contemporaneous with and unique to the production of the specific record and is independent of computer control, additional foundation is required to establish the requisite ‘human involvement’.” State v. Johnson, 184 Ariz. 521, 911 P.2d 527 (App. Div.1 1994), internal citations omitted.
The court in Johnson makes clear that merely having language that matches the statute along with a computer generated signature is not enough to make a ticket valid. There must be evidence of human involvement and choice, before the ticket is issued, where a human has evaluated the facts specific to the circumstances, and after consideration of these facts, intends to issue the citation.
The reality is that, in many cases, the tickets are in fact computer generated, mass-mailed, and, only upon the setting of a hearing, does anyone actually evaluate the evidence. Such a process necessarily deprives the court of subject matter jurisdiction, as the ticket itself was never valid.
Many issuing agencies attempt to address the problem of a computer certifying its own documents, by having the computer routinely assert that the human whose signature is affixed by the computer was involved before it was generated. You can see that, logically, that doesn’t actually meet the requirements of the law.
At a civil traffic hearing, there must be testimony that the citing officer was involved contemporaneously in the review of the evidence, and the exercise of independent judgment, before the signature was affixed and the ticket issued. A rote, naked, and automatically generated assertion to the contrary on the face of the ticket cannot cure this defect, as there is no extrinsic evidence that the requirement that there be human involvement and independent judgment prior to its issuance was met. Without such evidence on the record, good grounds exist for the case to be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
A process which generates complaints in assembly-line fashion, without the human involvement and independent judgment required by our statutory scheme and rules, necessarily deprives the court of subject matter jurisdiction. That the court has lacked subject matter jurisdiction may be raised at any time, and lack of subject matter jurisdiction cannot be waived. During a civil traffic hearing, it would typically be at the close of the case that this issue would be raised, for a lack of evidence on the record that the citation was generated with the required human involvement, and therefore, the absence of the court’s subject matter jurisdiction.
