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Chalking your tires to give parking tickets ruled unconstitutional. (1 Viewer)

-fish-

-fish-

Footballguy
This is awesome.    Chalking tires in order to enforce time limits and issue parking tickets is both a trespass and an unconstitutional search and seizure.  It only affects the 6th Circuit, but there will be other challenges based on this.

Clearly, these judges were previously lawyers who had to use meters near the courthouse.   

Sometimes the courts get it right

Chalking tires is a kind of trespass, Judge Bernice Donald wrote for the panel, and it requires a warrant. The decision affects the 6th Circuit, which includes Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

The Fourth Amendment protects people from "unreasonable searches and seizures." To determine whether a violation has occurred, the court first asks whether the government's conduct counts as a search; if so, it asks whether the search was reasonable.

The court found that chalking is indeed a "search" for purposes of the Fourth Amendment, because government officials physically trespass upon a constitutionally protected area to obtain information. Just as the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that sticking a GPS tracker to a car counted as a "search," so is marking a tire with chalk to figure out how long it has been parked, the court wrote.

And that search wasn't reasonable, the court said. The city searches vehicles "that are parked legally, without probable cause, or even so much as 'individualized suspicion of wrongdoing' — the touchstone of the reasonableness standard," the court wrote.
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Interesting. In the NPR article, they quote Orin Kerr, a conservative who sometimes writes for the Volokh Conspiracy (IIRC) as saying that taking a picture of the car with the time would not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Then again, you'd sort of have to stay with the car to prove that it didn't move and park again, one would imagine.

 
rockaction said:
Interesting. In the NPR article, they quote Orin Kerr, a conservative who sometimes writes for the Volokh Conspiracy (IIRC) as saying that taking a picture of the car with the time would not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Then again, you'd sort of have to stay with the car to prove that it didn't move and park again, one would imagine.
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Yeah I don't know what a picture would actually prove.   If it was video or time lapse or something, sure.   

 
-fish- said:
rockaction said:
Interesting. In the NPR article, they quote Orin Kerr, a conservative who sometimes writes for the Volokh Conspiracy (IIRC) as saying that taking a picture of the car with the time would not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Then again, you'd sort of have to stay with the car to prove that it didn't move and park again, one would imagine.
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Yeah I don't know what a picture would actually prove.   If it was video or time lapse or something, sure.   
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I work in an area where parking officers used to use chalk. We would send a secretary out to the street every few hours to wipe off the chalk marks, and nobody from our office ever got a ticket.

Then they switched to pictures. I ended up getting a ticket for staying too long in a 3-hour zone. The parking officer had taken two pictures of my wheels, 4 hours apart. Both pictures showed the valve stems at 2 o'clock and 9 o'clock.

I went to court and argued that the officer could not prove that my car had been there for the entire 4 hour period.

The officer counter-argued that there was no way that my valve stems would have remained in the exact same configuration if I had left and then returned.

I asked the officer to provide evidence to back up his claim. His response: "It's just basic common sense."

The judge ended up finding me guilty, but cut my fine in half.

Since then, I've been moving my car 1 foot every 3 hours and I've haven't gotten another ticket.

 
[scooter] said:
I work in an area where parking officers used to use chalk. We would send a secretary out to the street every few hours to wipe off the chalk marks, and nobody from our office ever got a ticket.

Then they switched to pictures. I ended up getting a ticket for staying too long in a 3-hour zone. The parking officer had taken two pictures of my wheels, 4 hours apart. Both pictures showed the valve stems at 2 o'clock and 9 o'clock.

I went to court and argued that the officer could not prove that my car had been there for the entire 4 hour period.

The officer counter-argued that there was no way that my valve stems would have remained in the exact same configuration if I had left and then returned.

I asked the officer to provide evidence to back up his claim. His response: "It's just basic common sense."

The judge ended up finding me guilty, but cut my fine in half.

Since then, I've been moving my car 1 foot every 3 hours and I've haven't gotten another ticket.
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but you don't think you should receive a ticket?

 
[scooter] said:
I work in an area where parking officers used to use chalk. We would send a secretary out to the street every few hours to wipe off the chalk marks, and nobody from our office ever got a ticket.

Then they switched to pictures. Since then, I've been moving my car 1 foot every 3 hours and I've haven't gotten another ticket.
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Whoa. That first story kind of sucks, but it's nice that you found a workaround. 

 
[scooter] said:
I work in an area where parking officers used to use chalk. We would send a secretary out to the street every few hours to wipe off the chalk marks, and nobody from our office ever got a ticket.

Then they switched to pictures. I ended up getting a ticket for staying too long in a 3-hour zone. The parking officer had taken two pictures of my wheels, 4 hours apart. Both pictures showed the valve stems at 2 o'clock and 9 o'clock.

I went to court and argued that the officer could not prove that my car had been there for the entire 4 hour period.

The officer counter-argued that there was no way that my valve stems would have remained in the exact same configuration if I had left and then returned.

I asked the officer to provide evidence to back up his claim. His response: "It's just basic common sense."

The judge ended up finding me guilty, but cut my fine in half.

Since then, I've been moving my car 1 foot every 3 hours and I've haven't gotten another ticket.
Click to expand...
Seems like a lot of work to circumvent the law.

 
[scooter] said:
Since then, I've been moving my car 1 foot every 3 hours and I've haven't gotten another ticket.
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I think it's awful that the average person has to do things like just to park their car in a "legal" manner.

Cops seriously have nothing better to do than walk around chalking tires and snapping pictures?

 
[scooter] said:
I work in an area where parking officers used to use chalk. We would send a secretary out to the street every few hours to wipe off the chalk marks, and nobody from our office ever got a ticket.

Then they switched to pictures. I ended up getting a ticket for staying too long in a 3-hour zone. The parking officer had taken two pictures of my wheels, 4 hours apart. Both pictures showed the valve stems at 2 o'clock and 9 o'clock.

I went to court and argued that the officer could not prove that my car had been there for the entire 4 hour period.

The officer counter-argued that there was no way that my valve stems would have remained in the exact same configuration if I had left and then returned.

I asked the officer to provide evidence to back up his claim. His response: "It's just basic common sense."

The judge ended up finding me guilty, but cut my fine in half.

Since then, I've been moving my car 1 foot every 3 hours and I've haven't gotten another ticket.
Click to expand...
Lol

There's a Seinfeld episode in there

 
Leroy Hoard said:
I think it's awful that the average person has to do things like just to park their car in a "legal" manner.

Cops seriously have nothing better to do than walk around chalking tires and snapping pictures?
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You think he has no other options? Nobody is forcing his behavior.

 
Leroy Hoard said:
I'm questioning that the cops might have bigger fish to fry than trying to outsmart a guys tire placement over a period of hours.
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Fair enough. What about meter maids? When parking space is a limited resource, how should its use be regulated?

For the record, I find parking in the city as annoying as the next guy. I just don’t like people gaming the system at the expense of others.

 
Walking Boot said:
He's not parking it in a "legal" manner.

It's a pain when a jacked up broken down car is parked in front of your house for a week and you can't get the city to give them a ticket for staying past the allowed time. 

My city only lets you park in the same spot on a residential street for like 3 days. I'm open to suggestions on how to enforce that... besides the city having to assign a parking enforcement officer to set up a beach chair and physically watch the car for 72 hours. It seems that 1) notice of complaint, then 2) photos of the car in the same location 72 hours apart, should be enough to issue the ticket. 
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He is talking hours not days. His daily work car, not a broken down jalopy.

 
Terminalxylem said:
Fair enough. What about meter maids? When parking space is a limited resource, how should its use be regulated?

For the record, I find parking in the city as annoying as the next guy. I just don’t like people gaming the system at the expense of others.
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People have been working around parking problems for decades. I've seen business owners putting money in meters to keep their customers from getting tickets because they are spending a few extra minutes in their stores.

 
I always thought the chalk was silly. I’ve been at places that gave warnings when it was happening and everyone just went outside and wiped the chalk off.

 
Binky The Doormat said:
but you don't think you should receive a ticket?
Click to expand...
I work in an industrial part of town that receives very little traffic. For years, the streets by our office did not contain any parking restrictions. Then one day, the city decided that the area needed to be a 3-Hour Zone -- even though the only people who ever come to this part of the city are people who work there and generally park their cars for at least 6 hours.

There are no parking garages nearby.  There are no reasonable mass transit options.

We fought with the city and they agreed to create 4 "permit" spots. But we have 6 full-time employees in our office.

So, we have a rotating schedule of scofflaws. Two of us park in a timed zone every day, periodically moving our vehicles a few feet. (Or sometimes we move them a full block, which is the more legal method of sticking it to the man.)

The city still makes plenty of money off of us, as they charge us for 6 permits even though we can only use 4 at a time. :rolleyes:

 
[scooter] said:
I work in an industrial part of town that receives very little traffic. For years, the streets by our office did not contain any parking restrictions. Then one day, the city decided that the area needed to be a 3-Hour Zone -- even though the only people who ever come to this part of the city are people who work there and generally park their cars for at least 6 hours.

There are no parking garages nearby.  There are no reasonable mass transit options.

We fought with the city and they agreed to create 4 "permit" spots. But we have 6 full-time employees in our office.

So, we have a rotating schedule of scofflaws. Two of us park in a timed zone every day, periodically moving our vehicles a few feet. (Or sometimes we move them a full block, which is the more legal method of sticking it to the man.)

The city still makes plenty of money off of us, as they charge us for 6 permits even though we can only use 4 at a time. :rolleyes:
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seems very -EV

 
“Because the purpose of chalking is to raise revenue, and not to mitigate public hazard, the City was not acting in its ‘role as [a] community caretake[.]’”

So, I guess @purplehaze67 had a judge agree that his parking ticket was a “bull**** money grab”?

 
[scooter] said:
I work in an area where parking officers used to use chalk. We would send a secretary out to the street every few hours to wipe off the chalk marks, and nobody from our office ever got a ticket.

Then they switched to pictures. I ended up getting a ticket for staying too long in a 3-hour zone. The parking officer had taken two pictures of my wheels, 4 hours apart. Both pictures showed the valve stems at 2 o'clock and 9 o'clock.

I went to court and argued that the officer could not prove that my car had been there for the entire 4 hour period.

The officer counter-argued that there was no way that my valve stems would have remained in the exact same configuration if I had left and then returned.

I asked the officer to provide evidence to back up his claim. His response: "It's just basic common sense."

The judge ended up finding me guilty, but cut my fine in half.

Since then, I've been moving my car 1 foot every 3 hours and I've haven't gotten another ticket.
Click to expand...
Would have been easier to just have everybody paint their tires yellow or white.

 
Leroy Hoard said:
People have been working around parking problems for decades. I've seen business owners putting money in meters to keep their customers from getting tickets because they are spending a few extra minutes in their stores.
Click to expand...
I’ve seen meter maids write tickets for feeding someone else’s meter.  I don’t know what the basis was or whether if stood up in court, but I’m in favor of anything that thwarts them.   Usually it’s a money grab.  It’s not about a parking problem.

 
Walking Boot said:
I believe in Santa Monica CA, they use "smart meters" for paid parking... the meter has a camera that watches the parking spot full time.

If the car doesn't fully vacate the spot, it won't allow you to feed the meter again to get more time if you're at the limit. You have to physically pull away and circle the block before parking in that spot again.

I do also like the smartphone options, where you can pay for the spot at the meter with a credit card, then enter your cell phone number. The meter will text you when your paid time is up, and you can text back to have it charge your card again for more time.

All that said, I'd prefer to not have to install a meter in front of my house to deal with some guy who's decided to abandon his eyesore in front of my yard for weeks on end. Right now if I call the city they chalk, I'm open to alternative ways to enforce the law.
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I don’t think metered parking and an abandoned car in front of your house are even close to related issues.

 
-fish- said:
I don’t think metered parking and an abandoned car in front of your house are even close to related issues.
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Yeah, but if it’s unconstitutional in front of the courthouse, it’s unconstitutional in front of my house. Chalking tires is a simple, no-tech solution to show whether a car has moved or not. Elevating the act of scraping a water soluble Tums across a tire to “illegal search and seizure” is ridiculous.

Does this ruling mean the state troopers can’t put a piece of reflective tape on a broken down car on the shoulder of the interstate to mark it for towing?

 
Rustoleum said:
Yeah, but if it’s unconstitutional in front of the courthouse, it’s unconstitutional in front of my house. Chalking tires is a simple, no-tech solution to show whether a car has moved or not. Elevating the act of scraping a water soluble Tums across a tire to “illegal search and seizure” is ridiculous.

Does this ruling mean the state troopers can’t put a piece of reflective tape on a broken down car on the shoulder of the interstate to mark it for towing?
Click to expand...
Different issue.  Towing a car from the side of a road is a safety issue.  Marking a tire with the intent of using that mark to support an infraction is a fourth amendment issue. 

 
  • Smile
Reactions: Zow
Leroy Hoard said:
People have been working around parking problems for decades. I've seen business owners putting money in meters to keep their customers from getting tickets because they are spending a few extra minutes in their stores.
Click to expand...
How is that gaming the system? The meter doesn’t care who pays.

 
rockaction said:
Interesting. In the NPR article, they quote Orin Kerr, a conservative who sometimes writes for the Volokh Conspiracy (IIRC) as saying that taking a picture of the car with the time would not violate the Fourth Amendment.

Then again, you'd sort of have to stay with the car to prove that it didn't move and park again, one would imagine.
Click to expand...
Generally, "reasonableness" for search purposes is balanced against the extent of the intrusion as well as the relative expectation of an average citizen engaging in same behavior. 

Under that standard, for a person parked in a public space, it wouldn't be terribly intrusive if an average citizen took a picture of your car and watched it awhile. So, I actually agree with the claim that pictures wouldn't violate the fourth amendment. The distinguishing factor from the case fish cites is that, in that case, the state is actually touching and marking your car - an act a defendant would not reasonably expect from an average citizen. 

 
Zow said:
Generally, "reasonableness" for search purposes is balanced against the extent of the intrusion as well as the relative expectation of an average citizen engaging in same behavior. 

Under that standard, for a person parked in a public space, it wouldn't be terribly intrusive if an average citizen took a picture of your car and watched it awhile. So, I actually agree with the claim that pictures wouldn't violate the fourth amendment. The distinguishing factor from the case fish cites is that, in that case, the state is actually touching and marking your car - an act a defendant would not reasonably expect from an average citizen. 
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Yeah, what you said. No, in all seriousness, I gathered that from the article. I have seen people taking pictures of other peoples' cars once. Later that night, all their windows were smashed in and belongings stolen. 

Mine was one of them. 

Neat stuff.  

 
Rustoleum said:
Yeah, but if it’s unconstitutional in front of the courthouse, it’s unconstitutional in front of my house. Chalking tires is a simple, no-tech solution to show whether a car has moved or not. Elevating the act of scraping a water soluble Tums across a tire to “illegal search and seizure” is ridiculous.

Does this ruling mean the state troopers can’t put a piece of reflective tape on a broken down car on the shoulder of the interstate to mark it for towing?
Click to expand...
Likely not, as this situation is very different from the situation in the cash fish cites. The state would have a legitimate safety interest and a reasonable person who abandons his car probably has a reduced expectation of privacy so that his car won't be touched. 

 
Terminalxylem said:
Leroy Hoard said:
People have been working around parking problems for decades. I've seen business owners putting money in meters to keep their customers from getting tickets because they are spending a few extra minutes in their stores.
Click to expand...
How is that gaming the system? The meter doesn’t care who pays.
Click to expand...
Most metered spots have a time limit that cannot be legally exceeded, even if you put unlimited funds into the meter.

 
-fish- said:
I’ve seen meter maids write tickets for feeding someone else’s meter.  I don’t know what the basis was or whether if stood up in court, but I’m in favor of anything that thwarts them.   Usually it’s a money grab.  It’s not about a parking problem.
Click to expand...
I've heard this too.  I haven't encountered this issue ever professionally, but I've always found it odd that they'd ticket somebody else for feeding the meters. I would assume the goal is to ensure the meters are being fed if a car is there so who cares who pays? 

Come to think of it I think this was on an episode of Jackass where the guy dressed as a pink fairy and roller-skated around as a "meter fairy."  IIRC correctly he was threatened with a ticket.  I don't know why that'd be the case unless it's specific written into the statute or ordinance that this can't be done -- which would be my assumption. 

 
Walking Boot said:
I believe in Santa Monica CA, they use "smart meters" for paid parking... the meter has a camera that watches the parking spot full time.

If the car doesn't fully vacate the spot, it won't allow you to feed the meter again to get more time if you're at the limit. You have to physically pull away and circle the block before parking in that spot again.

I do also like the smartphone options, where you can pay for the spot at the meter with a credit card, then enter your cell phone number. The meter will text you when your paid time is up, and you can text back to have it charge your card again for more time.

All that said, I'd prefer to not have to install a meter in front of my house to deal with some guy who's decided to abandon his eyesore in front of my yard for weeks on end. Right now if I call the city they chalk, I'm open to alternative ways to enforce the law.
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This makes a ton of sense.  Kudos to your city. 

 
[scooter] said:
Most metered spots have a time limit that cannot be legally exceeded, even if you put unlimited funds into the meter.
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OK, in that case the store owner might be gaming the system by putting in coins for their patrons.

You guys really seem to have a keen awareness what constitutes a money grab wrt parking, so carry on with your civil disobedience. 

 
Wow~~~

I have never ever thought about parking at all, not tickets not anything.  That is until today.

I pulled into a ...10 Mintue Only...space, my first thought "who would know?"

That was it,

Then I arrive here and find this thread talking about parking.  I have a thread here about this kind of thing, happens to me all the time.

 
I worked in Arlington, VA for a while and the meter maid was chalking tires in residential neighborhoods. :shock:

Glad to see this ridiculousness was struck down.

 
Walking Boot said:
GroveDiesel said:
Walking Boot said:
Since the front wheels of a car drive a longer distance than the rear wheels, it would be extremely unlikely for the car to return to the same position, and have the valve stems in both the same position relative to the wheel, and to each other, at the same time. 
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Huh?
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They do. When you drive, the front wheels go farther than the rear ones. 
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https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-d369ec45361116f7d7fb3680430acefd.webp

 
I haven’t seen them use chalk in ages.  Usually they just take a picture.

Hopefully, people can get their money back.  I doubt it though.

 
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