Red Light Camera News MO Court DENIES Appeal by Springfield, MO. RLC Operation WAS ILLEGAL!
Missouri Supreme Court denies city of Springfield's request to revisit camera ruling
Amos Bridges • News-Leader • April 21, 2010
Missouri's Supreme Court on Tuesday denied the city's request that the high court revisit a March 2 decision declaring Springfield's process for enforcing red light camera violations to be in conflict with state law.
The denial -- no great surprise, City Attorney Dan Wichmer said -- means the city now must decide whether, and how, photo enforcement will be used. The city suspended use of its 13 red light cameras after the March 2 decision and dismissed all outstanding camera-related tickets.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court took issue with the city's use of administrative hearings to settle red light camera ticket disputes.
Judges said that unless specifically authorized by the legislature, the city must funnel moving violations and other alleged ordinance violations through municipal or circuit courts, where traditional standards of proof and avenues for appeal apply.
A footnote in the opinion also questioned the city's use of municipal court judges as administrative hearing officers, which it said appeared to violate state law.
Those portions of the decision could affect much more than red light cameras, Wichmer said.
Even before adopting its red light camera ordinance in 2007, the city had used administrative hearings to adjudicate some other matters, including violations of the city's dangerous building code, liquor license revocations and disputes over police-fire pension disability decisions.
In its request for a rehearing, the city asked the Supreme Court to modify its ruling to make clear whether those other functions could be handled administratively.
After Tuesday's denial, the city now must identify all affected functions and decide how to bring the procedures in compliance.
"I'm going to discuss the matter with outside counsel," Wichmer said Tuesday, adding that he has a few ideas for how to handle the violation hearings. "I know they're not going to go through Municipal Court as administrative matters."
The City Council ultimately will need to approve a number of ordinance changes, he said. In the meantime, city use of administrative hearings for any purpose will be put on hold.
We're just starting to figure out what it's going to do," Wichmer said. "Now that we know the decision's final, we have some things we have to take care of."
Options
As for the red light camera program, council has a few options, Wichmer said.
The program could be simply discontinued. Alternatively, council members could choose to upgrade the existing system to take pictures of drivers -- rather than just their vehicles -- so red light runners could be identified and prosecuted in municipal or circuit court.
Members of the previous City Council shied away from face shots, however, deeming it too invasive.
A third option would use the existing technology, but funnel violations through Municipal Court as traditional traffic tickets.
"You adopt basically the Arnold and St. Louis model," Wichmer said. "They're taking rear shots and treating it as a moving violation."
As with other traffic violations, convictions for red light running would be forwarded to the Missouri Department of Revenue, which might assess points against a driver's license -- something that didn't happen with the city's previous system.
But the city could run into difficulty proving the owner of a car photographed running a red light was the one behind the wheel.
"That's what all the lawsuits are over, that's what we were trying to avoid," with the earlier system that handled tickets as non-criminal ordinance violations, Wichmer said.
Although federal courts and state courts in other states have upheld such enforcement as constitutional, "there's been no state court guidance so far from Missouri," he said.
Decision lauded
An attorney for Adolph Belt Jr. -- the former state trooper whose lawsuit led to the city's red light camera ordinance being struck down -- lauded the Supreme Court decision Tuesday, saying it supports "motorist safety and the rule of law."
Jason Umbarger, who also has filed a class-action lawsuit seeking the return of about $800,000 in fines collected before the system was shuttered, suggested the city instead investigate other means of reducing red light running.
"Our community has an opportunity to once again lead the nation in traffic safety innovation, much as we did with the diverging diamond intersection (at Kansas Expressway and Interstate 44)," Umbarger said in an e-mail.
Traffic signals that blink green a few seconds before switching to yellow, longer yellow caution times and approach stripes -- which show drivers where they need to be to safely cross once a light turns yellow -- are "cheap, effective" ways to prevent red light running and reduce crashes, he said.
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