User:Joezabel/Taylor v. City of Saginaw

In Taylor v. City of Saginaw, et al, No. 17-2126, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 12412 (6th Cir. Apr. 25, 2019)/ Taylor v. City of Saginaw, 2019 WL 1757953, _____ F.3d _____ (6th Cir. 2019), the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued an amended opinion holding that the practice of “chalking” in which parking enforcement officers apply chalk to mark the tires of parked vehicles in order to track and determine the duration of time for which those cars have been parked, constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. The court also held that two exceptions to the warrant requirement — the “community caretaking” exception and the motor-vehicle exception offered by the government— do not apply in the case of chalking. The case arose after Plaintiff Alison Taylor, a Saginaw resident and recipient of fifteen parking tickets in the years 2014 to 2017, sued the City of Saginaw and officer Tabitha Hoskins alleging that chalking constitutes an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment. Taylor v. City of Saginaw represents the first case in which the practice of chalking was alleged to violate the Fourth Amendment.

Facts and Procedural History

Between 2014 and 2017, Saginaw City parking enforcement officer, Tabitha Hoskins chalked Alison Taylor’s tires on fifteen separate occasions and fined Taylor for exceeding the time allowed in a parking spot. The fines started at $15.00 and increased from there.

On April 5, 2017, Taylor filed suit against the city of Saginaw in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, alleging that the City violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches by chalking her tires without her consent or a search warrant. Taylor also sued Hoskins in her individual and official capacity.

On June 5, 2017 the Defendants filed a motion to dismiss Taylor’s claim under rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,arguing first that chalking was not a search under the Fourth Amendment, and second that, even if it was a search, it was reasonable.

The District Court granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss finding that while chalking did constitute a search under the Fourth Amendment, the search was reasonable. Regarding the question of reasonableness, the court ruled that pursuant to Cardwell v. Lewis, 417 U.S. 583, 590, 94 S. Ct. 2464, 41 L. Ed. 2d 325 (1974), there is a reduced expectation of privacy in automobiles and since the “search in question involved taking nothing from the vehicle and, in fact, doing no permanent damage at all,” the search is clearly reasonable. The court also ruled that the search came under the community caretaking exception to the Fourth Amendment, in which searches are deemed reasonable when the police act more in their capacity as community caretakers than as law enforcement officers. Taylor subsequently appealed the district court’s decision to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Amended Holding

In an opinion originally written on April 22, 2019 by Judge Bernice B. Donald and joined by Judge Raymond Kethledge and Judge Damon Keith, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision issued by District Court. The Court of Appeals determine whether a Fourth Amendment violation occurred by asking two primary questions: “first, whether the alleged government conduct constitutes a search within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment; and second, whether the search was reasonable.”

Search

First, the Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that chalking is a search under the Fourth Amendment. The Court of Appeals analyzed the practice of chalking under the 2012 Supreme Court case United States v. Jones which held that for a government action to constitute a search requires, the action must contain both physical trespass as well as an attempt to find out information. The Court of Appeals ruled that chalking is a trespass under Jones because it satisfies the common law trespass test, as it is a physical intrusion even if "no damage [is done] at all." The Court of Appeals also ruled that because the government uses chalking as a means of “identifying vehicles that have been parked in the same location for a certain period of time” information the City then uses to issue citations, the practice amounts to an attempt to obtain information under Jones.

Reasonableness

Second, the Court of Appeals held that neither the automobile exception nor the community caretaking exception cited by the Government applied in the case of chalking and thus the Government failed to meet their burden of showing that search was reasonable.

The Automobile Exception

The automobile exception normally permits law enforcement officers to search a vehicle without a warrant if they have "probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains evidence of a crime." United States v. Smith, 510 F.3d 641, 647 (6th Cir. 2007). In this case however, where the search occurred only as a means of enforcing parking rules and generating revenue for the City, no probable cause existed to believe the vehicle contained evidence of a crime, thus the automobile exception does not apply.

The Community Caretaker Exception

The community caretaker exception to the warrant requirement applies when law enforcement offers are acting purely as caretakers of the community upholding order and preventing hazards. In this case, the City did not meet their burden “of establishing that the community caretaker exception applies in this instance.” The court ruled that the burden was not met for two reasons: First, the City did not show that chalking bore a sufficient relation to ensuring public safety. The City failed to demonstrated how “the location or length of time that Taylor's vehicle was parked created the type of "hazard" or traffic impediment amounting to a public safety concern.” Second, the City failed to show that “delaying a search would result in "injury or ongoing harm to the community." Because Taylor’s vehicle was lawfully parked, it imposed no safety risk and no risk of injury. The court concluded that “because the purpose of chalking is to raise revenue, and not to mitigate public hazard, the City was not acting in its "role as [a] community caretake[.]"

The court amended the opinion three days later on April 25, 2019 to clarify that just because chalking is a search and the City failed to meet its burden of showing that an exception to the warrant requirement applies, does not mean that the practice of chalking necessarily violates the Fourth Amendment. The new conclusion instead holds that: “taking the allegations in Taylor's complaint as true, we hold that chalking is a search under the Fourth Amendment, specifically under the Supreme Court's decision in Jones. This does not mean, however, that chalking violates the Fourth Amendment. Rather, we hold, based on the pleading stage of this litigation, that two exceptions to the warrant requirement—the "community caretaking" exception and the motor-vehicle exception—do not apply here. Our holding extends no further than this. When the record in this case moves beyond the pleadings stage, the City is, of course, free to argue anew that one or both of those exceptions do apply, or that some other exception to the warrant requirement might apply.” Thus, the issue of the constitutionality of chalking remains undecided and may turn on which exceptions to the warrant requirement the City invokes in forthcoming proceedings.

As a result, the court reversed the District Court’s order, dismissing the case on the pleadings and remanded for further proceedings.

Significance and Reaction

Taylor v. City of Saginaw immediately drew the attention of law commentators across the country. Some worry that the decision might carry significant consequences for public agencies across the country. Professor Orin Kerr noted the significance of a decision that at least called into question the constitutionality of a fairly routine and low-technology practice. He noted that this may be the only case in which "chalking" was alleged to violate the Fourth Amendment.

He also noted that Taylor v. City of Saginaw presents a somewhat unusual application of the intent test. Normally, questions of intent to obtain information refer to information contained inside a home or a box. Here, the City only intends to find out if the vehicle itself moved, but nothing about the contents of the vehicle itself.

He also wrote that “some courts might disagree with the Sixth Circuit's reasonableness analysis on the ground that chalking is a de minimis search as part of a regulatory scheme.”  It's just putting a temporary mark on a tire, it causes no damage, and it doesn't reveal anything. Citing to Naperville Smart Meter Awareness v. City of Naperville, in which the court upheld a city’s warrantless collection of its residents’ energy-consumption data as reasonable where “[e]mployees of the city’s public utility—not law enforcement—collect[ed] and review[ed] the data” because of the substantial government interest allowing “utilities to reduce costs, provide cheaper power to consumers, encourage energy efficiency, and increase grid stability” and the fact that the city did not actually enter the homes at issue, he notes that this case could be a similar low-level searches that is reasonable based on a balancing of interests without particularized suspicion.

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