First Posted: 2/18/2015
CINCINNATI (AP) — A closely divided Ohio Supreme Court on Wednesday stood by its earlier ruling upholding use of traffic cameras.
The justices rejected a driver’s motion to reconsider their 4-3 ruling in December. The court’s announcement showed that the same three justices who previously dissented disagreed with the latest decision.
The court supported Ohio cities’ authority to use cameras to catch speeders and red light-runners and to handle drivers’ appeals with administrative procedures.
The attorney for the motorist who challenged a camera-generated speeding ticket in Toledo wanted the state’s highest court to take the rare step of reconsidering a ruling. Fremont attorney Andrew Mayle argued in his motion that the divided court went beyond the state constitution and court precedent.
He said Wednesday that the court should have reconsidered a ruling that gives “a city council the power to effectively take away a person’s day in municipal court — and replace it with a political appointee’s jurisdiction — when the local government alleges wrongdoing. That is neither a police power nor power of self-government, which are distinct concepts the majority mistakenly conflated.”
Toledo law director Adam Loukx had responded that the motion for reconsideration simply rehashed old arguments with hyperbole.
Justice Sharon Kennedy wrote for the majority in December saying that Ohio’s constitution grants “municipalities the authority to protect the safety and well-being of their citizens by establishing automated systems for imposing civil liability on traffic-law violators.” She repeatedly cited a 2008 Supreme Court ruling upholding traffic camera use by the city of Akron under local “home-rule” authority that Ohio municipalities have.
She was joined by Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, Justice Judith Ann Lanzinger and W. Scott Gwin, a state appeals court judge who sat in place of Terrence O’Donnell after O’Donnell recused himself from the case last year for an unspecified reason.
Justice William O’Neill wrote in dissent that the Toledo case wasn’t about home rule, but courts being usurped. Justices Paul Pfeifer and Judith French also dissented.
Plaintiff Bradley Walker, a Paducah, Kentucky, businessman, was ticketed in Toledo for speeding in 2009 and paid a $120 fine before deciding to sue.
Camera advocates around the country say they free up police for other crime-fighting and make communities safer. Foes say they trample motorists’ rights and are mainly meant to raise revenues.
Wednesday’s decision won’t necessarily be the high court’s final word on the issue. There is pending litigation from other challenges to cameras around the state, and officials in some cities are considering a legal challenge to a recently signed Ohio law requiring a police officer to be present when camera enforcement is used.
