Fighting speed camera and red light camera tickets in federal court is becoming increasingly difficult as yet another US district court judge yesterday embraced the use of automated ticketing machines. Judge Nanette K. Laughrey dismissed the class action lawsuit that Gregory Mills had filed against the city of Springfield and Lasercraft, a private vendor that has since been bought out by American Traffic Solutions. Mills argued that because the Missouri Supreme Court in March struck down the city’s program as illegal (view decision), those who received tickets were entitled to a refund.
Under the program, Lasercraft mailed tickets to the owners of vehicles who in many cases were not behind the wheel at the time of the offense and consequently had not violated any law. The suit argued that these individuals were denied a meaningful right to contest the $100 punishment imposed because challenges to the citation were heard not in a court with constitutional protections, but in an administrative hearing operated by an employee of the city that receives the proceeds from payment of any fines. Judge Laughrey dismissed the notion that anyone could be wrongly accused and assumed anyone mailed a ticket by Lasercraft was a scofflaw who should not have been running red lights.
“The freedom to run a red light is not a fundamental right that is deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition,” Laughrey wrote. “Under the lenient rational basis test, the city of Springfield’s red light camera ordinance is rationally related to the legitimate government interest in public safety. Clearly, a legislative body could find that improved surveillance and enforcement of red light violations would result in fewer accidents.”
Laughrey went on to insist the fine imposed was not a punishment and the mere declaration by Springfield city leaders that the program was “civil” deprived ticket recipients of any meaningful constitutional protection.
“The court finds that a mere $100 fine does not rise to the level of an intent to punish,” Laughrey wrote. “As a civil ordinance, Section 106-161 need not provide the heightened procedural protections required by the Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.”
Laughrey finally ruled that the fact that the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Springfield’s program was illegal did not affect her analysis under federal law.
“The due process clause does not require a state to implement its own laws correctly, nor does the Constitution insist that a local government be correct in its interpretation of what is permissible under state law,” Laughrey wrote. “Thus, plaintiffs’ attempt to convert violations of state law into federal due process claims improperly bootstraps state law into the U.S. Constitution. It is implausible that Section 106-161 could have denied plaintiffs substantive due process.”
Cases against Springfield are pending in state courts. A copy of the federal decision is available in a 125k PDF file at the source link below.
Source: 
Mills v. Springfield (US District Court, Western District of Missouri, 9/3/2010)
[Courtesy:Thenewspaper.com]
Good Legal analysis, really poor result. (IAAL) This is why you have a Judge in the first place, to realize that, at times, a very strict application of a law, is unjust.
This very clearly points out why US ticketing via $camera is done as a “parking ticket” as in New York, or “civil” elsewhere. Points would mean real organized opposition eventually, and there are “service of process” issues with moving violations here in NY. (the cop has to hand you the ticket in person).
The money machine will chug along better if it’s just a $100 parking ticket. The victims will grumble and whine, but eventually pay in most cases, unless word gets out like in Arizona that you could toss them safely.
Interesting that unlike top-down systems, Australia and the UK, here in the US of A smaller local governments in most cases are the ones that want to screw the motoring public with automatic fine machines. This is producing a lot of litigation and many differing results, from Court cases to Petition Drives. It is only in places where the governed and the governing are far enough apart (the UK, NYC, parts of FL) that this sort of thing gets traction at all. At least we don’t have this imposed from the top for the whole country.
Interestingly even in the UK some speed cameras are coming down. I guess that is why these foreign (and I use that word intentionally) firms are buying off councilmen, er drumming up business here in the US.
If it cost money not a single Town, City or Village would do it.
This very clearly points out why US ticketing via $camera is done as a “parking ticket” as in New York, or “civil” elsewhere. Points would mean real organized opposition eventually, and there are “service of process” issues with moving violations here in NY. (the cop has to hand you the ticket in person).
The system isn’t convicting you of a crime. There’s no criminal record and no points lost: it’s leaving it up to you to a) prove that it wasn’t your car, or if it was, that your car was stolen or b) if it was your car, you’re responsible for it’s use and you can extract the money from the person who did, or c) that the camera wasn’t functioning correctly, which you can test pretty easily.
On the whole, it’s a lot less expensive than having a LEO do the same thing. And at least, with a camera, there’s testable evidence. A police officer can lie in court about traffic matters pretty much with impunity.
If they didn’t come to this conclusion, you’d see people pulling this same logic when issued a parking ticket: “But sir, you cannot prove that it was I who parked my car in that handicap spot, so ergo I shouldn’t be ticketed.”
I wonder if these judges would change their tune if someone were to rent or borrow a car matching the appearance of the Judges’. Then ‘borrow’ or mock up their license plate. Then spend hours going around the same blocks making safe, but ticketable righthand turn on red light camera mounted intersections.
Thus earning the Judge thousands of fines at $100 a pop or more (400-500 per in CA).
Make sure to remove any individual stickers from the car and wear a disguise. Some guys did this with a speed camera a few years ago but the cops figured out who it was by the car’s make and individual stickers.
Also, getting caught with a fake plate is bad. If anyone figured out it was a special persons’ plate, more bad.
You mean, like what’s already been done, by high school students, no less?
http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2009/01/10/high-school-students-using-the-speed-camera-pimping-game-to-exact-revenge/
It’s good fun until those same laws affect a judge, politician, or policeman.
I’m pretty sure I read something about this on some website somewhere…
Found it! ;-)
Not every injustice should be in the federal courts. Sure, it sucks that those people got those tickets, and Missouri’s decision that the procedure was illegal was correct. But do we really want class action lawsuits in federal court over municipal traffic ordinances? Because that was the door the plaintiffs were trying to open.
In some states the tickets are not civil/parking tickets. They are criminal infractions, and carry points which could cause you to lose your license. A real punishment.
In those U.S. states (including California and Arizona and some other midwest or western states), the cameras are set up to get a “face photo” of the driver; This is done because criminal charges must always name the actual violator.
In California, that need to identify the actual violator has led to the creation of a unique investigatory tool, the Snitch Ticket. When the police encounter a face photo which is clearly neither the registered owner nor another licensed driver residing at the owner’s address, at least 38 California police departments mail the registered owner a document that looks like a real camera ticket (but in fact is not, and has no legal weight whatsoever), in an effort to fool the owner into responding (he does not have to) and identifying the driver responsible for the offense. If in doubt, Google the term Snitch Ticket.