There's nothing particularly complex about this line of reasoning. If the guy has no understanding of what "probable cause" means, he is plainly not qualified to be a cop. If he does understand what it means, but he knowingly ignored it, then that's a serious violation of constitutional rights. Then there's perjury on top of that - again, something a police officer should very much be familiar with.
"If he does understand what it means, but he knowingly ignored it, then that's a serious violation of constitutional rights."
What he's doing is what he is told.
Obviously - someone far higher than 'a cop' decided to implement the policy of 'camera tickets'.
The 'possible constitutional violation' is inherent in the policy, he's not doing anything but implementing the policy.
He's just the schmuck who has to be in court, validating the policy, which is way beyond his rank.
Also - it's debatable whether this is a 'clear violation of constitutional rights'. 'Camera tickets' are in place all over America, Canada, Europe etc. - if it were a huge violation of rights there would be a lot of court challenges.
In effect the person 'on the stand' should have been whoever in the judicial system is responsible for actually implementing the system. Then it would be 'their responsibility' if there was a violation.
The cop on the stand is basically the sorry dude forced to articulate the obvious incoherence of the policy.
The clear violation of constitutional rights here is not the camera ticket per se. It's this particular statement made by this particular officer. He could not in good conscience make a claim that he did without evidence. If his superiors demanded that he make such a claim, either directly (by ordering such) or indirectly (by demanding a certain amount of tickets), the proper course of action would be to refuse to implement it, and expose the scheme to the public. Since in this particular case the demands actually constitute making a false statement, an order requiring that would be criminal in and of itself, so this even falls under the duty to report a crime.
The rest of your argument is "I'm just following orders". This is considered sufficient to reduce culpability in some circumstances, but is not enough to avoid it entirely, on the basis that if nobody followed orders that are clearly illegal, the harm from them wouldn't occur, so people who do follow them do contribute to said harm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superior_orders
" the proper course of action would be to refuse to implement it,"
No, I'm sorry, but this is not pragmatic or reasonable.
It's not remotely clear that this is a 'violation of the constitution' and given that it's implemented in so many other areas and states, there's no way a cop can reasonably make this claim.
That's a lawyers job, not a cops job.
Can you imagine every cop on the beat trying to split hairs in all these situations?
There are tons of little things that law enforcement do that could be feasibly challenged in court.
This issue could feasibly go to the Supreme Court - so how could a cop be responsible for knowing up from down on this law?
It's not like the cops boss said 'shoot that guy who looks funny' wherein the cop would have a reasonable requirement to 'not commit a crime or do something unconstitutional'.
We're talking about traffic tickets.
In court, the cop answered the question as best he could and his honestly basically outlined the oddity of the law.
Let the courts decide the constitutionality of it all.
There's a well-known standard of "probable cause". A cop is supposed to know what that standard is, it's part of their job description, and it pertains directly to what they do every day.
When a cop is asked to claim that there's probable cause when said standard isn't met, it's clearly and plainly an illegal order, because they're asked to lie. Doing so under penalty of perjury is doubly illegal. He doesn't need to be a constitutional lawyer to determine that this is illegal and cannot be obeyed.
This is exactly the same as doing a search without warrant, or arresting someone without reading them their Miranda rights, or lying under oath (something that the cop had also admitted to doing, by the way).
That this also happens to be unconstitutional is coincidental. It suffices for the cop to know it's illegal, and act accordingly.
And if they do know their orders are illegal, but follow them anyway, they should be held responsible accordingly.
