- Kentucky: “The day before the deal was offered, prosecutors also indicted Card’s wife, mother and father. If Card gave up the cash, the written plea offer said, the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office would drop their charges, too.” [Jacob Ryan, WFPL] Same state, different case: “Conviction Or Not, Seized Cash Is ‘Cost of Doing Business’ In Louisville” [Jacob Ryan, Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting]
- Judge in New York: “Suffolk County may not charge $80 to resolve a $50 red light camera ticket.” [The Newspaper]
- “Civil Forfeiture Disenfranchises the Poor” [Cato Daily Podcast with South Carolina lawmaker Alan Clemmons and Caleb Brown] “Class-Action Lawsuit Challenges Detroit’s Asset Forfeiture Racket” [C.J. Ciaramella, Reason]
- “Father and adult daughter sue feds over confiscated life savings” [Theresa Braine, New York Daily News]
- “Free to Drive: States punish poverty by suspending millions of driver’s licenses for unpaid fines and fees” How about reserving license suspensions for instances of actual unsafety? [advocacy site with maps and more; related, Tachana Marc, Florida Policy Institute; New York state advocacy site]
- “Missouri Cops Used Federal Loophole To Seize $2.6 Million From Drivers Who They Never Charged With Crimes” [Zuri Davis]
Posts Tagged ‘red light cameras’
April 4 roundup
- “Former employee of red light camera company that bribed Chicago official (who is now serving 10 years) turns informant, seeks sizable cut of the $20 mil the company paid to settle the city’s suit. Seventh Circuit: The chutzpah!” [John K. Ross, Short Circuit, on City of Chicago ex rel. Rosenberg v. Redflex Traffic Systems Inc.]
- “Why Religious Organizations Shouldn’t Lose Tax-Exempt Status Based on Public Policy, Post-Obergefell” [Sally Wagenmaker via Caron/TaxProf]
- The regulated American truck operator: “For the liberty minded professional driver, the situation looks bleak.” [“Gordilocks,” Glibertarians]
- Practice pointer: don’t make closing argument in a condition that could score .337 on a Breathalyzer afterward [Mike Frisch, Legal Profession Prof; Jefferson County, Ky.]
- Not a total shocker: study finds student editors at law reviews tend to accept articles matching their own ideologies [Prof. Bainbridge]
- Per a United Nations expert, 1) adopting fiscal austerity programs may put countries out of compliance with international human rights; 2) to remain in compliance, countries may be obliged to undertake crackdowns on financial privacy meant to extract more taxes. Oh, international human rights, how elastic thou art [Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights, U.N.]
Update: Oregon admits error in traffic engineer case
As reported in April, the state of Oregon fined Mats Järlström of Beaverton $500 for supposedly practicing engineering without a license after he sent a letter to state officials challenging traffic camera practices, including various calculations, and mentioning his background as an electrical engineer. Now the state has admitted that it erred and violated his constitutional rights, and refunded his fine. [Reese Counts, AutoBlog]
Well, that didn’t work out as planned
“Judge tells Ohio village to pay back $3 million from traffic camera tickets” [AP]
Police and prosecution roundup
- Amid multiple scandals, why won’t office of Orange County, Calif. District Attorney Tony Rackauckas confirm name of county investigator alleged to have beaten defense attorney in courtroom hallway? [R. Scott Moxley/OC Weekly via Radley Balko, Voice of OC]
- And from February: “former Los Angeles sheriff Lee Baca announced that he would plead guilty to criminal charges related to systemic misconduct in his department, specifically to a charge of lying to investigators in an effort to cover up that wrongdoing.” [Kevin Williamson]
- Post-Ferguson investigation: problems with small-town municipal courts go way beyond North St. Louis County into outstate Missouri [St. Louis Post-Dispatch]
- Judge throws out mountain of tickets from Chicago traffic and speed cameras [TimeOut, Timothy Geigner/TechDirt, earlier]
- Britain: following collapse of lengthy Operation Midland law enforcement inquiry into a fantasist’s wild tales of abuse (did senior Tories murder rentboys for fun?) vindicated officials and their families wonder where to turn to get their reputations back [Dan Hodges/Telegraph (citing Metropolitan Police commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe’s favorable reference to a second official’s statement that “The presumption that a victim should always be believed should be institutionalized”); Matthew Scott/Barrister Blogger, Richard Bartholomew]
- Supreme Court nominee: “In Criminal Rulings, [Chief Judge Merrick] Garland Has Usually Sided With Law Enforcement” [New York Times; more on Garland’s D.C. Circuit rulings]
Law enforcement for profit roundup
- Montgomery County, Maryland officials help plant letters praising speed cameras in local papers [The Newspaper] “Chicago issued $2.4 million in bogus traffic tickets from speed cameras” [David Kravets, ArsTechnica citing David Kidwell and Abraham Epton, Chicago Tribune]
- “DEA Promised TSA Agent a Cut of Passengers’ Seizable Cash” [Jacob Sullum, Reason]
- “Cops Seized Over $107,000 From Couple; Didn’t Charge Them With A Crime” [Rock Island, Ill.; Amy Alkon citing Quad Cities Dispatch-Argus]
- I was among those speaking at an Annapolis event unveiling a new bill to restrain and better control asset forfeiture [Frederick News-Post, WBAL, Scott Shackford/Reason, Grant Zeigenfuse/Maryland Reporter; earlier on South Mountain Creamery case; more on margarita machines as forfeiture perk]
- Texas: “Cops Getting Free License Plate Readers In Exchange For 25% Of The ‘Take’ And All The Driver Data Vigilant” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt]
- Cato podcast on asset forfeiture with Adam Bates. More: What the President should do;
- How does Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance spend his $800 million slush fund from bank settlements? Any way he pleases? [Scott Greenfield]
Law enforcement for profit roundup
- One Oklahoma official used asset forfeiture to pay back his student loans, another lived rent-free in a confiscated house [Robby Soave, Reason]
- Per ACLU, Arizona has a one-way legal fee rule in forfeiture cases, with prevailing police allowed to collect from property owner but not vice versa [Jacob Sullum]
- From Michael Greve, some thoughts on prosecution for profit and where money from public fines should go [Liberty and Law]
- About the Benjamins: Philadelphia mayor-to-be cites revenue as reason to let parking officers ticket sidewalk users [Ed Krayewski, Reason]
- Captive market: with wardens’ and sheriffs’ connivance, prison phone companies squeeze hapless families [Eric Markowitz, IB Times]
- Former red light camera CEO pleads guilty to bribery, fraud in Ohio [Cyrus Farivar, Ars Technica]
- Taxpayers lose as Maine counties jail indigents over unpaid fines [Portland Press-Herald]
- “St. Louis County towns continue to treat residents like ATMs” [Radley Balko]
Traffic and road law roundup
- Driver’s license suspensions, which many states use to punish unpaid court debt and other offenses unrelated to driving skill, can accelerate spiral into indigency [New York Times]
- Your war on distracted driving: woman says she received $200 ticket “for putting on lip balm at a red light.” [KLAS Las Vegas, Nev.]
- “Of Course We Have No Ticket Quotas, But ….” [Lowering the Bar; Edmundson, Mo., in St. Louis County; Mariah Stewart, Huffington Post on revenue generation in Berkeley, Mo., and other neighboring towns; Scott Greenfield (“Ferguson: Where Everyone’s a Criminal”)]
- Yet more on St. Louis County: it started with a “defective muffler” stop in Florissant [Riverfront Times]
- NYC: “Speed cameras lead to surge in tickets and $16.9M in revenue for city” [NY Daily News]
- New Los Angeles parking signs explain it all for you, also recall design of craps table [Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing]
- Virginia: “How Police Drones and License-Plate Readers Threaten Liberty” [A. Barton Hinkle; related, Jim Harper/D.C. Examiner]
Police and prosecution roundup
- “Georgia’s Highest Court Limits Power Of Private Probation Industry” [WABE, Augusta Chronicle, earlier here, here, here, and here]
- Federal judge slams as “preposterous” DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) actions in raid on Tampa pharmacy [Tampa Bay Online]
- “At Least 40 Federal Agencies Now Conduct Undercover Operations” [Jesse Walker]
- “’Gotcha’ program designed to rake in revenue”: “Nassau County Lawmakers Repeal Speed Camera Program” [CBS New York]
- “Creepy”: “FBI Agents Pose as Repairmen to Bypass Warrant Process” [Bruce Schneier]
- Somewhere an old guy in his room is wondering about ending it all, and somewhere a fanatic has been made happy [Elizabeth Nolan Brown on launch of Anaheim, Calif. shaming program to post names of sex purchasers online indefinitely]
- Heather Mac Donald: In defense of broken-windows policing [Time]
Police and community roundup
- Oh, no: “Ferguson to Increase Police Ticketing to Close City’s Budget Gap,” because three arrest warrants per household is still too low [Bloomberg News via Zach Weissmuller (& thanks for quote), earlier]
- In years 2011/12 alone, one Buffalo officer “killed as many dogs in the line of duty as the entire NYPD.” [WGRZ]
- “He believed the poor had the right to buy and sell.” Tunisia yes, Staten Island too? [David Boaz, USA Today]
- “The language of protest: Race, rioting, and the memory of Ferguson” [Abigail Perkiss, NCC/Yahoo, mentions me]
- “Red light cameras to go dark in New Jersey” [Josh Kaib, Watchdog Wire] “Public opinion swings hard against traffic cameras” [AutoBlog]
- On interpreting statistics on race and policing, point counter-point [Scott Alexander, Ezra Klein, Alexander] Reminder: increasing ranks of black officers does not necessarily lead to fewer shootings of black civilians [Jamelle Bouie, Slate]
- “Sex, Spice, and Small-Town Texas Justice: The Purple Zone Raid” [Reason.tv video]