Here’s the drift – Atlanta hired a private firm to enforce its on street parking regulations. The firm uses “non police” personnel to write citations. Now some legal eagle in the Peachtree city is trying to say that all tickets written are illegal since they were written by “private citizens” and not by “sworn police.” Read all about it here. The city is considering stopping all enforcement until they can sort it out.
Oh Please….Citations are written daily in municipalities across the fruited plain. You can get “written up” for leaving your garbage cans out too long, for not mowing your lawn, for building something without a permit, and in every case, a policeman was not involved. All these nincompoops are doing is costing the city time and money. OK maybe the legalese needs to be cleaned up a bit, but certainly the concept of non sworn officers writing parking tickets is not something that is rubbing up against the constitution.
In the UK, and I’m sure in most of the US, parking violations are considered “non criminal” acts, and therefore don’t need a policeman involved. This entire conversation is absurd.
JVH
One Response
John,
I believe that the issue is not one of sworn officers vs. private enforcement. What the district court judges are finding objectionable is that the private company is profiting from the issuance of codified ordinances. Looking at the way the contract was written, the city inappropriately transferred its governmental authority to impose and collect fines. There is a clear conflict of interest when the private issuer of the alleged violation essentially gets to keep 100% of the fine amount.