Definitely not a lawyer, and I know a lot of places are moving to photo enforcement of parking anyway, but it's hard for me to understand why a chalk mark on a tire would be determined an "unreasonable" search by the court.
> The Supreme Court held that Michigan had a "substantial government interest" to advance in stopping drunk driving, and that this technique was rationally related to achieving that goal (though there was some evidence to the contrary). The Court also held that the impact on drivers, such as in delaying them from reaching their destination, was negligible, and that the brief questioning to gain "reasonable suspicion" similarly had a negligible impact on the drivers' Fourth Amendment right from unreasonable search (implying that any more detailed or invasive searches would be treated differently). Applying a balancing test, then, the Court found that the Constitutionality of the search tilted in favor of the government.
Assuming one agrees with that ruling, I'm not seeing how chalking cars isn't a sufficiently minimal "reasonable" search to allow the government to enforce things it has an interest in. (Assuming also that parking enforcement qualifies as a "substantial government interest" — which, IDK, perhaps it doesn't.)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_P...
I have no opinion on the legality. From a practical perspective, I don't see any problem with chalking and I think this is a mistake on the part of the court.
The court is willing to give the police more lee-way when the stakes are demonstrably higher.
This is largely why these time limited parking laws come into play. I think thats enough to put chalk on a tire, if it's also legal to stop people and give them a breathalyzer (one is much more invasive than the other).
What about leaving a fingerprint on someone's car, which (per my uncle comment) police routinely do without enough evidence for a search, and which ordinary people do all the time?
Sticking a flyer in the windshield?
> In accordance with Jones, the threshold question is whether chalking constitutes common-law trespass upon a constitutionally protected area.Though Jonesdoes not provide clear boundaries for the meaning of common-law trespass, the Restatement offers some assistance. As defined by the Restatement, common-law trespass is “an act which brings [about] intended physical contact with a chattel in the possession of another.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 217 cmt. e (1965). Moreover, “[a]n actor may . . . commit a trespass by so acting upon a chattel as intentionally to cause it to come in contact with some other object.” Id.Adopting this definition, there has been a trespass in this case because the City made intentional physical contact with Taylor’s vehicle. As the district court properly found, this physical intrusion, regardless of how slight, constitutes common-law trespass. This is so,even though “no damage [is done] at all.” Jones, 565 U.S. at 405 (quoting Entickv. Carrington,95 Eng. Rep. 807, 817 (C.P.1765))
The Restatement explains, in Section 218, that liability for trespass generally requires some sort of injury or deprivation of use. So you can't sue someone just for touching your car. But it also explains in Section 217 that the trespass itself can occur absent injury or dispossession, and that trespass can have legal significance even if it is not directly actionable.
Edit: toned down.
> Is there actual case law about someone being prosecuted for the trespass of putting chalk at the bottom of someone's tire? How about sneezing?
> What about leaving a fingerprint on someone's car ... which ordinary people do all the time?
The Court relies on the part of the Restatement that says a trespass has occurred when you intentionally touch someone else's chattel property. That doesn't answer your point, which is why I referred you to Section 218, which explains that a trespass, though it has occurred, is not actionable standing alone absent damages or dispossession. So even though touching someone's car is technically a trespass, it's not an actionable trespass so you wouldn't see lawsuits involving mere touching.
(As to your point about police leaving fingerprints--I've never heard of the practice. But my assessment would be that even though it's trespass, it's not actionable (no damages), and it's not a Fourth Amendment violation because it's not actually part of the search, but merely incidental to it.)
Hence the link in the comment I referred to: http://mentalfloss.com/article/502605/reason-police-officers...
>But my assessment would be that even though it's trespass, it's not actionable (no damages), and it's not a Fourth Amendment violation because it's not actually part of the search, but merely incidental to it
But it's done when the officer isn't allowed to (otherwise) search -- before he's had any contact with the driver or even looked inside the car.
Say a police officer stops you for running a red light. At that point, he has no suspicion that would justify a search. I tries to tap on your door to get you to roll down your window, and his ring scratches your car. That is a trespass to chattels, and it's actionable because it has resulted in damage to your car. After you roll down the window, he sees someone snorting cocaine in the back seat. He then searches your car, and recovers tens of kgs of drugs.
Was there an illegal search? No. Even though scratching your car was a trespass, and even though you can still sue for the cost of fixing the scratch, that trespass had nothing to do with recovering the evidence of drug crimes.
Are you saying that e.g. the cop's fingerprint on the tail light could not be used as evidence, because it was an illegal trespass?
>Before cameras were installed on the dashboards of most police cars, tapping the taillight was an inconspicuous way for officers to leave behind evidence of the encounter, according to The Law Dictionary. If something were to happen to the officer during the traffic stop, their interaction with the driver could be traced back to the fingerprints left on the vehicle. This would help other police officers track down a missing member of the force even without video proof of a crime.
A car is chattel property. Chalk-marking a car is a trespass to chattels, because it involves intentionally touching the car without permission. Therefore, under Jones, a warrant is required to chalk-mark a car in the course of investigating whether someone has broken the law (i.e. a search).
[1] The 4th amendment says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated[.]" "Houses" are real property, while "papers, and effects" are chattel property.
The idea is to tell if someone has been parking for longer than is acceptable in a particular spot. Not a big deal (I assure you the chalk comes right off!). Not the kind of problem that one would think should involve the 4th Amendment.
I guess one's judgement on this depends on whether one thinks laws and the amendments of the constitution are supposed to be taken as absolutely literal and inflexible in their interpretation, with no consideration for practical reality or actual consequences.
Sorry, but I think that's unreasonable here.
But it's unconstitutional to do so, because the principle behind our laws say that law enforcement cannot (without a warrant or exigency) trespass on your property to accomplish its goals, whatever they may be.
The principle here seems sort of superfluous, but it's holding the line against any sort of trespass, some of which you'd probably find less reasonable, such as magnetically attaching a GPS transmitter to the bottom of your car.
> ...but it's holding the line against any sort of trespass.
A little colored talcum powder on the wheel seems like such a trivial, short-term intrusion that I just don't see the issue. Those perfume spraying salespeople at department stores routinely do something much more invasive.
[1] http://mentalfloss.com/article/502605/reason-police-officers...
Edit: I'm well aware that circumstances can generate cause for intrusion, which, if we're going to be that pedantic, also refutes 'governments are generally is not permitted “trivial, short-term intrusions”, regardless of the duration or triviality.'
DUI checkpoints were found by the Supreme Court to be a specific instance of permissible intrusion in service of the public good, as the benefits of the theoretically-impermissible search outweigh the trivial, short-term intrusion: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=...
Both cases clearly indicate that while the trivial, short-term intrusions are normally unacceptable, the public good in each circumstance outweighs the violation of constitutional rights. In the chalking case, the court found no cause sufficient to justify the violation. It seems likely it will be appealed to SCOTUS, which I’m quite looking forward to if they accept it!
I encourage you to look up other such cases; I suspect you’ll find that violations of the general principle against any intrusion, regardless of duration, will be carefully scoped to ensure they cannot be generalized.
Yes, I know. I was referring to the valid version of it that references 20 minutes to establish that duration matters in terms of whether the intrusion is justified -- i.e. the charitable interpretation you use to ensure a responsive discussion.
>DUI checkpoints were found by the Supreme Court to be a specific instance of permissible intrusion in service of the public good, as the benefits of the theoretically-impermissible search outweigh the trivial, short-term intrusion
Yep, exactly the argument I was making here.
Again, you're just being pedantic while agreeing with the substance of what I said. That isn't productive.
> overscrupulous, scrupulous, precise, exact, over-exacting, perfectionist, precisionist, punctilious, meticulous, fussy, fastidious, finical, finicky
Each of those words is positive, if not mandatory, when dealing with the law, with the courts, with court judgements, and with the Constitution. Could you be more precise (pedantic, even!) about why taking a 'fastidious' or 'precise' approach to this discussion of constitutional law is inappropriate here?