Chris Baker, our old friend and the Twin Cities’ hottest talker, passes along this interesting bit of news from his new home:
Drivers nabbed by the now-outlawed photo-cop red-light enforcement program in Minneapolis will get most of their fines back and their records cleansed under a settlement approved today by the Minneapolis City Council.
The proposed $2.6 million settlement would reimburse roughly 15,000 drivers who got tickets under the program, according to attorneys. They paid $142 each but legal fees and other costs will be subtracted from that under the settlement.
But the city’s sign-off on the settlement is contingent on the state and Hennepin County also agreeing to their split of the fine money toward the settlements.
The conviction for running a red light will also be expunged from driving records, according to Marshall Tanick, the lead attorney for drivers involved.
“That’s very important to people,” he said. The city will pay $10,000 toward the state’s costs to expunge records.
Tanick said that those convicted also will get a letter that they can use with their insurer to argue against cancellation or revocation of insurance or rate increases that may have resulted.
The city’s photo surveillance program used images of vehicles that ran red lights to cite the owner of the vehicle. The Minnesota Supreme Court last year backed the ruling of lower courts that holding the owner of a vehicle responsible for the actions of whoever was driving it was unconstitutional.
The county had earlier dismissed citations issued to 4,200 people that hadn’t been sent on to the court.
The agreement was negotiated in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of the drivers where were ticketed and paid fines. The city also agreed to pay the state $10,000 for the costs of expunging the offense from driver license records.
We’ve long criticized Houston’s red-light camera scheme on due-process grounds, since the owner of a car is presumed guilty of running a red light even in the complete absence of positive photo proof that he/she was actually driving. It’s good to see that the highest court of at least one state shares those concerns.
Of course, the municipalities and small-time pols who engaged in red-light-revenue-stream overreach probably aren’t too happy about it.
