SAN FRANCISCO — A motion to suppress evidence in a stolen car case was denied by a San Francisco judge on Tuesday morning, raising new legal questions about how the Harvey-Madden rule should apply to automated license plate readers and other AI-powered surveillance technologies.
At the preliminary hearing, Judge Simon J. Frankel found sufficient evidence to hold the accused for trial on a charge under Penal Code §17500 (possession of burglary tools) and a post-theft driving charge. The prosecution did not pursue a grand theft auto charge because the evidence failed to show the vehicle was worth at least $950—the legal threshold for felony theft.
According to the prosecution, the accused was arrested in May near San Francisco City Hall while driving a car reported stolen in Redding days earlier. The vehicle’s license plate had been flagged by Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company contracted by the city to install hundreds of automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras throughout San Francisco.
Deputy Public Defender Naira Der Kiureghian argued that the information leading to the arrest was inadmissible under the Harvey-Madden rule, which limits the admissibility of hearsay from police bulletins unless the source is established. In this case, the alert was transmitted from Flock to the San Francisco Police Department’s Real Time Investigation Center (RTIC), which then relayed the information to officers in the field.
Kiureghian contended that this constituted hearsay-upon-hearsay, and argued that officers should have verified the stolen status of the vehicle through Computer-Aided Dispatch (CAD) logs or a Police Information Check before making the stop. She asserted that, without independent corroboration, the evidence should be suppressed.
Judge Frankel disagreed, ruling that both the RTIC and Flock’s system were part of the department’s “official channels,” and therefore did not violate Harvey-Madden.
