Court Opinion

ID: 9788890
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:21:44.839137+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:17.211357
License: Public Domain

Chief Justice MULLARKEY,
dissenting:
Because I believe that our clear and emphatic holding in People v. Hizhniak, 195 Colo. 427, 579 P.2d 1131 (1978), controls this case, I respectfully dissent.
The respondent in Hizhniak was charged with speeding on a local street in the City of Sterling, a home-rule city. "Clocked," presumably by radar technology, at thirty-five miles-per-hour in a twenty-five miles-per-hour zone, Hizhniak was tried and convicted, fined $100, and sentenced to ten days in jail. Id. at 428, 579 P.2d at 1132. We considered whether Sterling could impose a jail sentence where the legislature had determined that the maximum penalty should be a fine. Concluding that enforcement of traffic laws regulating speeding and red lights is a matter of local interest, we held that the city was permitted to "regulate speed limits on its streets and prescribe its own penalties for violations thereof." Id. at 429, 579 P.2d at 1132.
In Fraternal Order of Police v. City & County of Denver, we explained that "we rely upon our own precedent to indicate what constitutes a local concern, as opposed to a statewide concern." 926 P.2d 582, 592 (Colo.1996) (citing Robertson v. City & County of Denver, 874 P.2d 325, 350 (Colo.1994) (Erickson, J., dissenting)). To that end, our decision in Hishniak was grounded in our past decisions indicating that regulation of traffic enforcement on local streets of home-rule municipalities is a matter of predominantly local concern. See, e.g., Retallack v. Police of Colorado Springs, 142 Colo. 214, 217, 351 *1286P.2d 884, 885 (1960) (observing that generally "the individual regulation pertaining to the establishment of one-way streets, posting of stop signs, installation of traffic signals, establishment of varying speed limits, and all regulations governing movements of vehicles . is the primary function of local government"); City of Cañon City v. Merris, 137 Colo. 169, 182, 323 P.2d 614, 621 (1958) of speed, right of way, parking, designation of one-way streets, and similar measures, all regulatory in seope, are matters of local and municipal concern.").
Because Hizhniak and the instant case are substantively and functionally indistinguishable, the majority's decision here, in my view, works an implicit but unmistakable repudiation of our precedent in that case. Hishniak centered not on which entity was allowed to set speed limits, but on which had the authority to establish the rule for determining speed limit violations. As in Highmiak, here the State urges that it possesses that authority and thus should decide the standard for speeding violations detected by photo radar. Hence, it argues that the statutorily pre-seribed limitations on fines, required signage, and prescribed warnings to drivers violating the speed limit by nine miles-per-hour over the limit or less, apply equally to municipalities created by the General Assembly as by the constitution. But here, no less than in Hizhniak, we should permit home-rule municipalities to determine how they wish to regulate and enforce the local speed limit. To conclude otherwise, I submit, reads out of the Colorado Constitution Article XX, See-tions 6(c) and (h), which provide that home-rule cities shall have the authority to create and regulate municipal courts, and to regulate the imposition, enforcement, and collection of fines for violations of municipal ordinances.
Unlike the majority, then, I believe that the matter at issue in this case is governed by our cases deciding factually and substantively similar traffic control issues. The majority attempts to distinguish Hizhniak and City & County of Denver v. Henry, 95 Colo. 582, 587, 38 P.2d 895, 897 (1934), by observing that our reasoning there relied on the cities' superior ability to determine speed limits based on local conditions while here "the use of photo radar has little to do with the local weather, geography, and road conditions." Maj. op. at 1288.
The brief of amicus City of Boulder, however, demonstrates that this is a distinction without a difference. Boulder asserts that it "has been particularly interested in using AVIS to slow traffic on residential streets which are, by misfortune of geography and history, heavily traveled. Effective enforcement can obviate the use of structural changes (dead ends, humps and bumps, or traffic circles) which can have unwanted deleterious effects on other municipal goals such as connectivity and emergency response." Thus, a city's use of radar is inherently connected to local conditions. Municipalities choose to mount AVIS systems, just as they choose to locate speed-trapping eruisers, in precisely those locations that, by virtue of weather, geography, road condition, or congestion, pose the greatest threat to local drivers.
In my view, the majority mischaracterizes the municipal power at issue here to avoid the clear import of our precedent. It describes the issue as one centering on the "power to regulate the use of photo radar systems," rather than the power to enforce speeding regulations. This characterization inevitably leads to the conclusion that municipalities have not historically been vested with the power to regulate AVIS technology an irrefutable logical deduction in light of the technology's recent evolution. The effect of this approach is to make a home-rule municipality's powers depend on what type of technology it deploys, not what type of power it is exercising.
Under the majority's rule, the City of Sterling would retain its authority to fine and imprison Mr. Hizhniak provided an officer detected his speed-limit violation using hand-held radar or airplane-assisted technology. Should the city instead elect to install a camera in the back of that officer's vehicle, however, it would be barred from prosecuting a speeding motorist unless it first issued a warning and could, at most, assess a $40 penalty. This approach clearly contravenes People v. Wade in which, a decade after *1287deciding Highni@ak, we confirmed that "[al city's choice of a sentencing scheme different from the state's is well within the city's constitutional power as a home rule city." 757 P.2d 1074, 1076 (Colo.1988). To conclude otherwise, we explained, substantially undercuts home-rule cities' independence and diminishes the degree of "self-determination vested in those cities by the constitution." Id. at 1077.
In my view, the extent of a home-rule city's powers cannot be frozen in time and made to depend upon the novelty of the technological tools it uses to enforce its ordinances. Making the innovative quality of a device the linchpin in the local versus statewide concern inquiry renders home-rule authority reliant on factors not enumerated in the constitution and never before contemplated by this court. It also defies our common experience: in the post-World War Two era, radar technology was novel. See, e.g., State v. Dantonio, 18 N.J. 570, 115 A.2d 35, 39-40 (1955) (taking judicial notice of devices that measure speed by radar as a method traffic enforcement). The novelty of this technology, and its subsequent enhancements over the decades, have never been sufficient to transform a local concern about traffic regulations into a statewide one. Thus, in my view, the fact that AVIS constitutes a "new" technology is insufficient to strip municipalities of their long-standing ability to regulate and enforce the local speed limit, and it is inadequate to supply the state with a new and higher interest in traffic regulation and enforcement.
I am also unpersuaded by the argument that the State obtains an interest in regulating speed limits enforced by photo radar simply because some drivers might be confused if they receive different types of photo radar tickets in different jurisdictions or if their infraction is not cited on-the-spot. Maj. op. at 1281. As it is now, speeding drivers cope with receiving different types of citations issued variously by troopers patrolling busy state highways and deputies monitoring lonely country roads. Similarly, due to "outside forces," drivers do not always receive parking citations or summonses affixed to their vehicles following an infraction of the local parking code. Patterson v. Cronin, 650 P.2d 531, 535 (Colo.1982). Nevertheless, this court has been untroubled by the fact that these violaters later receive notice via mail, perhaps days after they can remember committing the infraction. Id. In my view, there is no legally significant difference between receiving a post-infraction parking ticket or speed-limit violation citation by mail.
In sum, our case law establishes that the regulation and enforcement of traffic on local roads is a local concern. Absent a compelling reason to depart from our precedent, particularly a case so directly on point, I must adhere to the principle that traffic regulation is a local concern, as established in Hizghniak. Accordingly, I would conclude the provisions of the municipal regulations supersede the conflicting provisions of the photo radar statute. Therefore, I would reverse.