Yahoo Autos Court: Chalked tires violate rights of Michigan woman with 14 parking tickets
In case you've forgotten the particulars of the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights from your high-school civics class, here's a quick refresher:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
In other words, the ability of the government to invade your space is limited. It's a civics lesson Alison Taylor and her lawyer hadn't forgotten. Taylor, who had sued Saginaw, Mich., over 14 parking tickets she had racked up, has won a major court decision that says the city defaced the Fourth Amendment with a parking enforcement officer's modest piece of tire chalk.
Taylor argued that using the chalk to mark her tires constituted an unreasonable search without a warrant. Saginaw said the act of chalking Taylor's car was an exception to the Fourth Amendment.
But a three-judge panel of a federal appeals court just ruled unanimously that Taylor's novel argument was right, and Saginaw is wrong.
“For nearly as long as automobiles have parked along city streets, municipalities have found ways to enforce parking regulations without implicating the Fourth Amendment,” Judge Richard Griffin said in the opinion handed down Wednesday. “Thus, tire chalking is not necessary to meet the ordinary needs of law enforcement, let alone the extraordinary."