AJChenMPH
Forum Health Inspector
...Or does this guy have entirely too much time on his hands? I simply would have been happy getting the ticket dismissed. Although, I do give him kudos for following this all the way through.
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A Ticket On a Taurus Grows Into Much More
Legion of Citations In Va. May Be Void
By Nick Miroff, Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 16, 2007; A01
The Great Virginia Parking Ticket Battle began with a burst of expletives one Saturday morning in October 2000, when Woodbridge resident Robert W. Eberth, a retired Navy captain, found a $35 citation on the windshield of his 1990 Ford Taurus. NO VALID STATE INSPECTION, it said.
Eberth had been ticketed under Prince William County Code 13-322, mandating up-to-date inspection stickers for vehicles parked on public roads. True, Eberth had allowed the Taurus's registration to lapse. But he was saving the car for his teenage son and had parked it in the private lot of his apartment complex.
Eberth examined the ticket. He cursed a little more. Then he looked up 13-322 on the Internet.
"Something is very wrong with this picture," he said to himself. He checked the box marked "contest."
Over the next six years, representing himself in multiple court battles, Eberth took his parking-ticket dispute all the way to the Virginia Court of Appeals. Last month, he won.
A three-judge panel in Alexandria went even further than Eberth had imagined, ruling that Prince William had no authority to ticket vehicles with expired inspection stickers parked on private -- or public -- property. The ruling by Judge Robert J. Humphreys said state law prohibits only the operation of a vehicle with an expired inspection sticker, casting doubt on whether police anywhere in Virginia can ticket parked vehicles with expired stickers.
Because Prince William's code dates to at least 1965, the ruling suggests that the county has been erroneously citing drivers for more than four decades. Since 2000 alone -- the year Eberth got his first of three tickets -- Prince William has written 29,871 citations under Code 13-322, for fines totaling more than $1 million.
In Prince William, parking enforcement officers have been instructed to stop issuing citations for expired inspection stickers on parked cars. But police in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, as well as other Northern Virginia localities, said they were unaware of the ruling and were still issuing such tickets.
In the meantime, county attorneys in Prince William are scrambling to draft legislation for the General Assembly that would authorize ticketing of parked cars with expired stickers. County residents who have paid such fines won't get their money back. "If they haven't contested, that's the end of it," said Paul B. Ebert, commonwealth's attorney for Prince William.
Eberth's long, tortuous journey from Taurus owner to parking-ticket avenger is a tale of dogged persistence, sheer outrage and crafty improvisation. A Vietnam veteran who is a research consultant with the U.S. Marine Corps, Eberth, 62, is the type of man who keeps military time and has little patience for the vagaries of petty bureaucracy.
"I've led people in combat. I've had guys killed in Vietnam under my command," he said.
Over the years, Eberth has come to see his parking-ticket dispute in the grandest legal terms. It wasn't about the $35. For him, at stake was a larger, constitutional fight against government excess, abuse and violations of the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Before he was unjustly ticketed, Eberth's only formal legal training had been a three-hour Navy class on military law. Since then, he has spent hundreds of hours poring over law books, consulting lawyers and scouring the Internet.
"I didn't expect it to take six years," he said, "but I decided I was in it for the long haul."
What Eberth discovered early on was that his biggest challenge would not be getting the ticket dismissed; it would be to get himself convicted so he could appeal to a higher court.
Overturning Prince William's right to ticket uninspected vehicles was never Eberth's goal. His objection, rather, was that his Taurus had been cited while parked in a private lot -- equivalent, he thought, to ticketing a car in a residential driveway.
Through his research, Eberth learned that state law was written to give police access to private roads within developments containing 100 or more residential lots, such as a subdivision with at least 100 home sites. Prince William had enacted a law allowing tickets where there were 100 or more residential units, such as in an apartment building.
The result, Eberth thought, was that police were aggressively ticketing in apartment complexes where "people are least likely to have the resources or the will to get through the rigmarole I went through."
Eberth fought his first ticket from Prince William General District Court to Circuit Court, and then in a retrial. But a county prosecutor finally dismissed the case, saying, Eberth recalled, that he was doing so "out of gratitude" for Eberth's military service. Eberth found himself in the awkward position of objecting to his own acquittal. The judge overruled him; case dismissed.
But Eberth wouldn't quit. He had covered up the Taurus to avoid additional tickets, but after the first citation was dismissed, he removed the cover -- deliberately baiting parking-enforcement officers to cite him again.
He got another ticket Feb. 20, 2002, and, for his purposes, a new ticket to court. Once again, the judge dismissed the citation, Eberth said, out of sympathy for his situation.
"I'd blown a second opportunity," he said.
So Eberth went fishing a third time and was cited again Aug. 25, 2004. That time, he walked into court with a dismissal-proof plan. He plotted to make the case "a test of manhood." When Eberth arrived in Circuit Court, he got right in the prosecutor's face and dared him to proceed.
"I tend to spit a little when I'm animated, so I'm sure he got a full face, too," Eberth said. "I wanted to get him mad."
It worked. Eberth was found guilty, opening his path to the Court of Appeals. His first petition was denied, but on his second try, the court agreed to hear his case. Eberth finally got his day in court in September.
The decision Dec. 5 by the Court of Appeals invalidated both county codes, drawing distinctions between "operating" a vehicle and "parking" one and distinguishing residential "lots" from "units."
To Eberth, it was anticlimactic. "I've been fighting this for so long," he said. "There's a sense of vindication, but I didn't do a dance or pop open the champagne."
Eberth was still thinking big, and the court didn't engage his constitutional argument, as he'd hoped. "I want to take it to the next step. I intend to pursue this as a violation of the Constitution," he said.
For Prince William, Eberth's quest raised the question of how an illegally enacted code could persist for so long.
"I'm sure people over the years have challenged it," said Ebert, the commonwealth's attorney. "But no one's gone to the trouble of appealing it to the Court of Appeals."
Corey A. Stewart (R-Occoquan), chairman of the Board of County Supervisors, said: "We thank him for pointing out this error. I've got to hand it to him -- he's got determination. I hope he'll get on with his life now."
As for the Taurus, it hasn't been moved in six years. Turned out, his son didn't want it.
"He wanted something that was more the 'in' thing with the crowd at the high school," he said. "He has an SUV."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011501444.html
-----
A Ticket On a Taurus Grows Into Much More
Legion of Citations In Va. May Be Void
By Nick Miroff, Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 16, 2007; A01
The Great Virginia Parking Ticket Battle began with a burst of expletives one Saturday morning in October 2000, when Woodbridge resident Robert W. Eberth, a retired Navy captain, found a $35 citation on the windshield of his 1990 Ford Taurus. NO VALID STATE INSPECTION, it said.
Eberth had been ticketed under Prince William County Code 13-322, mandating up-to-date inspection stickers for vehicles parked on public roads. True, Eberth had allowed the Taurus's registration to lapse. But he was saving the car for his teenage son and had parked it in the private lot of his apartment complex.
Eberth examined the ticket. He cursed a little more. Then he looked up 13-322 on the Internet.
"Something is very wrong with this picture," he said to himself. He checked the box marked "contest."
Over the next six years, representing himself in multiple court battles, Eberth took his parking-ticket dispute all the way to the Virginia Court of Appeals. Last month, he won.
A three-judge panel in Alexandria went even further than Eberth had imagined, ruling that Prince William had no authority to ticket vehicles with expired inspection stickers parked on private -- or public -- property. The ruling by Judge Robert J. Humphreys said state law prohibits only the operation of a vehicle with an expired inspection sticker, casting doubt on whether police anywhere in Virginia can ticket parked vehicles with expired stickers.
Because Prince William's code dates to at least 1965, the ruling suggests that the county has been erroneously citing drivers for more than four decades. Since 2000 alone -- the year Eberth got his first of three tickets -- Prince William has written 29,871 citations under Code 13-322, for fines totaling more than $1 million.
In Prince William, parking enforcement officers have been instructed to stop issuing citations for expired inspection stickers on parked cars. But police in Fairfax and Loudoun counties, as well as other Northern Virginia localities, said they were unaware of the ruling and were still issuing such tickets.
In the meantime, county attorneys in Prince William are scrambling to draft legislation for the General Assembly that would authorize ticketing of parked cars with expired stickers. County residents who have paid such fines won't get their money back. "If they haven't contested, that's the end of it," said Paul B. Ebert, commonwealth's attorney for Prince William.
Eberth's long, tortuous journey from Taurus owner to parking-ticket avenger is a tale of dogged persistence, sheer outrage and crafty improvisation. A Vietnam veteran who is a research consultant with the U.S. Marine Corps, Eberth, 62, is the type of man who keeps military time and has little patience for the vagaries of petty bureaucracy.
"I've led people in combat. I've had guys killed in Vietnam under my command," he said.
Over the years, Eberth has come to see his parking-ticket dispute in the grandest legal terms. It wasn't about the $35. For him, at stake was a larger, constitutional fight against government excess, abuse and violations of the equal-protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Before he was unjustly ticketed, Eberth's only formal legal training had been a three-hour Navy class on military law. Since then, he has spent hundreds of hours poring over law books, consulting lawyers and scouring the Internet.
"I didn't expect it to take six years," he said, "but I decided I was in it for the long haul."
What Eberth discovered early on was that his biggest challenge would not be getting the ticket dismissed; it would be to get himself convicted so he could appeal to a higher court.
Overturning Prince William's right to ticket uninspected vehicles was never Eberth's goal. His objection, rather, was that his Taurus had been cited while parked in a private lot -- equivalent, he thought, to ticketing a car in a residential driveway.
Through his research, Eberth learned that state law was written to give police access to private roads within developments containing 100 or more residential lots, such as a subdivision with at least 100 home sites. Prince William had enacted a law allowing tickets where there were 100 or more residential units, such as in an apartment building.
The result, Eberth thought, was that police were aggressively ticketing in apartment complexes where "people are least likely to have the resources or the will to get through the rigmarole I went through."
Eberth fought his first ticket from Prince William General District Court to Circuit Court, and then in a retrial. But a county prosecutor finally dismissed the case, saying, Eberth recalled, that he was doing so "out of gratitude" for Eberth's military service. Eberth found himself in the awkward position of objecting to his own acquittal. The judge overruled him; case dismissed.
But Eberth wouldn't quit. He had covered up the Taurus to avoid additional tickets, but after the first citation was dismissed, he removed the cover -- deliberately baiting parking-enforcement officers to cite him again.
He got another ticket Feb. 20, 2002, and, for his purposes, a new ticket to court. Once again, the judge dismissed the citation, Eberth said, out of sympathy for his situation.
"I'd blown a second opportunity," he said.
So Eberth went fishing a third time and was cited again Aug. 25, 2004. That time, he walked into court with a dismissal-proof plan. He plotted to make the case "a test of manhood." When Eberth arrived in Circuit Court, he got right in the prosecutor's face and dared him to proceed.
"I tend to spit a little when I'm animated, so I'm sure he got a full face, too," Eberth said. "I wanted to get him mad."
It worked. Eberth was found guilty, opening his path to the Court of Appeals. His first petition was denied, but on his second try, the court agreed to hear his case. Eberth finally got his day in court in September.
The decision Dec. 5 by the Court of Appeals invalidated both county codes, drawing distinctions between "operating" a vehicle and "parking" one and distinguishing residential "lots" from "units."
To Eberth, it was anticlimactic. "I've been fighting this for so long," he said. "There's a sense of vindication, but I didn't do a dance or pop open the champagne."
Eberth was still thinking big, and the court didn't engage his constitutional argument, as he'd hoped. "I want to take it to the next step. I intend to pursue this as a violation of the Constitution," he said.
For Prince William, Eberth's quest raised the question of how an illegally enacted code could persist for so long.
"I'm sure people over the years have challenged it," said Ebert, the commonwealth's attorney. "But no one's gone to the trouble of appealing it to the Court of Appeals."
Corey A. Stewart (R-Occoquan), chairman of the Board of County Supervisors, said: "We thank him for pointing out this error. I've got to hand it to him -- he's got determination. I hope he'll get on with his life now."
As for the Taurus, it hasn't been moved in six years. Turned out, his son didn't want it.
"He wanted something that was more the 'in' thing with the crowd at the high school," he said. "He has an SUV."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/15/AR2007011501444.html
