Money has been taken from citizens by the authorities in an unlawful manner. Money has to be given back. I don't know what more to say about this matter. If I steal 200$ out of your pocket and you find out, my feeling is you would want your money back, not an apology and my heartfelt assurance that it won't happen again...
They unlawfully issued tickets, were made aware that they were unlawful, and don't want to refund the money ???
I must be taking crazy pills for people to think this is ok.
This is the NYPD - the most police-state police force in the country, responsible for such hits as Stop-And-Frisk, Eric Garner, and many other human rights abuses.[0]
You think they'd be so lenient with you if you offered them an apology?
Quick reminder about the title of the article - "The NYPD Was Systematically Ticketing Legally Parked Cars for Millions of Dollars a Year." Systematically.
[0] http://gothamist.com/2012/07/25/report_nypd_handling_of_occu...
I can absolutely believe that this happened by accident (it is a pretty subtle rule change), but that doesn't justify pocketing all of the cash it produced.
The very point of the statute of limitations is to limit how much of the present is spent digging up the past.
The owner must submit a Request for Hearing after Judgment form to fight the ticket. If the request for hearing after judgment is granted, the judge will hear the defense to the parking ticket. If the request is not granted, no hearing will be held and the total fine, interest, and penalties will be due.
[0]: http://www1.nyc.gov/nyc-resources/service/1652/fight-a-parki...
The thing is, there doesn't seem to be a cheap and automatic way to (a) accurately filter out all incorrect tickets and (b) track the people down who were wrongfully ticketed. (Yes, analyzing the thousands of different parking spots where tickets were issued for their legality is an expensive process - and there's bound to be a very long tail.) So it seems pretty clear to me that attempting a proactive refund would be an expensive waste of money.
Yes, the police are responsible for doing their job right, and that's what they're doing now. It would sure feel great to punish some scapegoat in hindsight, but this is a classic case where it's difficult to pin the blame - remember, it was a systemic problem where one (small) subgroup of officers failed to be properly trained after a rules change.
People who have been wrongfully ticketed should contest the ticket, it's as simple as that.
"Brooklyn’s 70th Precinct seems to have the most cars wrongly ticketed, bringing in over $100,000 in fines a year. The 77th, also in Brooklyn, comes in second:"
That's not an oversight. That's a systematic abuse of the public trust. How about people that didn't know they were wrongfully ticketed and fined? How about people that couldn't take the time off to dispute the ticket? Its extortionate.
I hope the next time you are on the wrong side of a municipal fine you remember you remember your glib words. Its as simple as that.
Anyone that lives in NYC is well aware that, no matter what the commish says, the officers on the ground do whatever they think they can get away with. It's not at all surprising to learn that intentionally wrongful parking tickets are a huge source of revenue for the PD.
With data about exact location of where each ticket was issued, it wouldn't have to be expensive.
I've done the same (got an open container ticket on the boardwalk in coney island, where they sell beer. the cop said you have to drink it within 20ft of the establishment that sold it). Admittedly, in that particular case they dismissed the fine and sent me my check back.
The worst part is that every time this happens, the taxpayers are on the hook. I think nothing will change as long as wrong decisions doesn't hurt the decision-makers. I don't know how to implement this but something has to give. When in doubt, officers should err on the side of not writing tickets.
Unrelated but our police officers need stronger protection from the insanity of things like quotas. Make it immensely profitable for an officer to whistleblow situations where they are required to collect $n in fines or write n tickets. Make it a federal law and take that money ($10MM per incidence per officer sounds like a good start, the point is it has to be high enough that there won't be peer pressure for an officer to "get in line") from the department. If they can't pay, too bad. The municipality/county doesn't deserve a police force.
How much did it cost them to issue tickets and collect that $1.7 million? Do they use the same logic while issuing tickets and collecting fines?
There's been a huge proliferation of laws in the last ~20 years or so which are categorized as Strict Liability. Taxes have always been like this, but lately a lot of new laws have said "follow this or else" full stop.
Since normal everyday citizens are being held to strict liability every day, I see no reason to be so forgiving of officers. I'm not suggesting that they're bad people, or deserve to go to jail for making an honest mistake. But what's good for the goose is good for the gander and if normal folks are being punished this way, so should law enforcement, politicians, etc. Nobody should be exempt, the law is the law.
Supreme Court says otherwise, if you're a cop.
Heien was about meeting 4th Amendment probable cause standards to prosecute a different crime. This is about ticketing people over the non-criminal act out of ignorance. It's like if Heien had been fined over the brake lights even though they were legal.
As is, the NYC statue of limitations will strip most of these people of the right to contest tickets that were given for non-crimes.
However, in this case, returning the money with interest would be somewhat punitive, and that would indeed be appropriate, as it would discourage future carelessness in enforcement and abuse of the citizens of NY.
If you fail to pay all the taxes you owe, you are required to pay penalties. If the government fails to correctly enforce the law and wrongfully fines innocent citizens, why should it not be required to pay penalties?
This is the most basic way to hold government accountable for such carelessness. When a department fails to meet its budget because it did not correctly train its officers in the law, did not properly oversee enforcement, and now has to repay what it wrongfully took, those responsible for the oversight will be replaced with others more competent. As a result, the citizens have a more competent, ethical, accountable, and efficient government.
Wherever did you get the idea that, "Well, as long as you promise not to do it again..." is a sensible solution?
In an argument where the authorities are using the cost of repayment as an "argument" -- that's pretty silly.
Laws change because we learn from experience and over time situations change.
He'd be displaying a fake page, identical in all details, except for the recursion. "You won't believe the one difference in this ..."
http://www.amlegal.com/codes/client/new-york-city_ny/
In a city where disagreeing with law enforcement's wrong or illegal activity risks violent reaction or death, it is not solely the citizen's obligation to correct law enforcement's mistakes.
Law enforcement tax the citizens to pay professionals to enforce laws. Those professionals have a duty to do their job properly.
A terrible decision
The answer to that question is also the answer to the questions:
* Can you checkout the book of laws out of the library?
* Can you buy the book of laws on Amazon? Can you even afford to buy the book of laws?
Your point about purchasing a paper copy of the legal code is spot on. In my state, I asked my local government workers (clerks, law librarians, etc) where to buy a copy of my state's code. There seems to be only one source and it costs more than 700 USD.
For someone who lives on the opposite side of town from the courthouse, or spends more on rent than a potential law book, reading law on paper can be impossible.
There are online versions, but somehow I think that most people wouldn't be willing to suffer through the mountains of legal text on their phones. The interfaces I've seen sometimes even break tab navigation by using javascript references to each item, making them a pain to use on a big screen.
People challenge infractions in court all the time. Theyre not in much danger. There is a process for this that involves courts and sometimes a lawyer.
You're conflating the judicial system with street interactions with the police, where contesting the NYPD is indeed a risky proposition.
In New York City, most infractions are not challengeable in court. Unless you consider the city Finance Department a court or consider its commissioner a judge.
New York has only one, unified judiciary. The mayor and his commissioners are not part of it. The mayor and his commissioners are not judges.
Like any other bureaucracy, if you get a ticket or citation, you're free to contest it. This wasn't a systematic abuse of power -- it was a bureaucratic oversight.
As gohrt points out, this cannot be done. Being aware of the laws that apply to you in the US is far beyond any human capacity.
I would be appalled if people here on HN were applauding a company for apologizing for effectively stealing money and not returning it. What is the difference?
So far a blogger received an email with an apology. That's not much to get excited about.
What's to stop them from carrying on as usual if there are no repercussions and only millions in revenue for them to collect?
An error was identified, communicated, and acted upon as a result of open data. Specifically, it became known that due to inadequate training practices patrol officers were unawares of the change whereas parking enforcement were the only ones trained and therefore were not making the same mistake:
> "When the rule changed in 2009 to allow for certain pedestrian ramps to be blocked by parked vehicles, the department focused training on traffic agents, who write the majority of summonses."
> "Yet, the majority of summonses written for this code violation were written by police officers. As a result, the department sent a training message to all officers clarifying the rule change and has communicated to commanders of precincts with the highest number of summonses, informing them of the issues within their command."
So the issue isn't that police were confused so much as their training wasn't updated because of a system failure (training only traffic agents and not patrol officers).
Further they are taking action to monitor the open data themselves to detect future anomalies themselves:
> "Thanks to this analysis and the availability of this open data, the department is also taking steps to digitally monitor these types of summonses to ensure that they are being issued correctly."
This is a great step forward regardless of whether or not en-mass refund occur.
To me, a refund would be icing on the cake. And perhaps one will happen (hopefully) this post was published today (May 11, 2016) after all.
As an aside, there is also something to be said about the fact citizens should be aware of their own rights and laws. Any citizen could and should have contested wrongly issued tickets.