Parking guards who break the tires with chalk violate the Constitution, Rules of the Court: NPR

The next time parking agents use chalk to mark your tires, they could act unconstitutionally.

A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that the "cracking" was a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

The case was brought by Alison Taylor, a Michigan woman whom the court described as "frequent consignee of parking tickets." The city of Saginaw, Michigan – like countless cities across the country – uses chalk to mark car tires and impose time limits on parking.

By the time Taylor received her 15th referral in just a few years, she decided to take on the city – and specifically after parking control officer Tabitha Hoskins.

Hoskins, according to Taylor in his lawsuit, was a "prolific" chalker. Hoskins issued each of Taylor's 15 tickets after she scored a tire with chalk, then turned around to see if Taylor's car had moved. This reasoning, Taylor said, was unconstitutional.

"To override a private vehicle parked on a public street to place a pencil mark to start gathering information to ultimately impose a government sanction is unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment," wrote Taylor's attorney, Philip Ellison, in a folder.

A panel of three judges of the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit unanimously agreed. Whipping the tires is a kind of intrusion, Judge Bernice Donald wrote for the committee, and that requires a warrant. The decision concerns the sixth circuit, which includes Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.

The fourth amendment protects people against "unreasonable search and seizure". To determine whether there has been a violation, the court first asks whether the government's conduct counts for a search; If so, he asked if the search was reasonable.

The court found that chalking was a "search" for the Fourth Amendment, as government officials physically encroached on a constitutionally protected area for information. Just as the Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that it was difficult to place a GPS tracker on a car, it draws with chalk on a tire to determine its parking time, the court said.

And this search was not reasonable, the court said. The city searches vehicles "parked lawfully, with no probable cause, or even up to an" individualized suspicion of wrongdoing "- the touchstone of the standard of reasonableness," the court wrote.

"We do not think everyone deserves free parking," said The Associated Press's attorney at the origin of the case, Philip Ellison. "But the process that Saginaw has chosen is unconstitutional … I am very pleased that the three judges who have been judged in this case have taken the case seriously – it affects so many people."

Law professor Orin Kerr, noting that he had never seen a case of chalk before, said that officers in charge of parking could completely avoid the constitutional question by simply taking a picture of the car rather than using chalk. "In this way, the parking forces can learn the placement of the car [without] physically scoring him, "Kerr wrote.

On her Facebook page, Taylor – the recipient of frequent parking tickets – was delighted that future law students would learn about her case while studying the Fourth Amendment. "It's definitely the most exciting part!" she wrote. "I helped change the law."