February 12 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 25 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

July 10 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

An especially outrageous angle from an earlier Ramos/WBEZ story, quoted in our earlier coverage: “Chicago has impounded and sold off nearly 50,000 cars for unpaid tickets since 2011. Not a dime of the sales went toward the ticket debt; instead, the city and its towing contractor pocketed millions.”

After a mechanic took it on an unauthorized ride, Chicago impounded her car. And then…. is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Still, others say most people would prefer enforcement be left to trained, public employees.

“Public officials may be far from perfect .?.?. but there is that extra layer that at least you can train them and they are likely to have the time on the job that allows them to build up their expertise,” said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. They also have protocols to follow — and a job at stake.

“The cellphone evidence can go a long way, but it still doesn’t always tell the whole story,” he said. “A lot of times you are going to have people who are genuinely guilty and you will be enforcing the law as it was intended to be enforced. But traffic enforcement does have a lot of judgment calls.”

But Olson says he can see why the practice would be attractive to cities.

“The city gets more revenue without having to pay salaries,” he said. “The potential increase in ticket revenue would get their interest right away.”

D.C. considers deputizing citizen parking enforcers is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Judge: holding “Cops Ahead” sign to warn motorists may be protected speech is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Update, from Orin Kerr: “The Sixth Circuit has issued an amended opinion in the chalking case clarifying the limited scope of its holding.” Quoting the amended opinion: “Taking the allegations in Taylor’s complaint as true, we hold that chalking is a search under the Fourth Amendment, specifically under the Supreme Court’s decision in Jones. This does not mean, however, that chalking violates the Fourth Amendment. Rather, we hold, based on the pleading stage of this litigation, that two exceptions to the warrant requirement — the ‘community caretaking’ exception and the motor-vehicle exception — do not apply here. Our holding extends no further than this. When the record in this case moves beyond the pleadings stage, the City is, of course, free to argue anew that one or both of those exceptions do apply, or that some other exception to the warrant requirement might apply.”

“Chalking tires constitutes unreasonable search, 6th Circuit rules” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Canceling drivers’ licenses for nonpayment of fines is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Chicago’s impound accounting is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

retains [such a ban] while also expanding distracted to include “Engaging in activity that is not necessary for the vehicle’s operation and that impairs, or reasonably would be expected to impair, the driver’s ability to drive safely.”

The new law provides no further explanation of the new definition, leaving it to the discretion of officers and the courts. It is thought that this definition could be applied to any kind of distraction that is related to an accident, including consuming food and beverages or adjusting car systems like climate and radio.

The problem here with vagueness and enforcement discretion go beyond the scope of the penalty, which for now is only $100. [Tim Zubizarreta, Jurist; Scott Greenfield; Tim Cushing on Twitter (“a blank check for pretextual stops”); earlier]

Ohio bans distracted driving, cops to fill in details is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system