Court Opinion

ID: 9559318
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:26:35.563619+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:35.662819
License: Public Domain

WOLFE, Chief Justice
(concurring in the results).
I concur in the results of the opinion of Mr. Justice HENRIOD insofar as it holds that Ogden City has no express or implied power to pass the ordinance in question. I agree to such holding on the ground that power to pass an ordinance establishing a rule of evidence binding on the *349courts is not granted in express words nor can it be fairly-implied from nor is it incident to the powers expressly-given, nor is it essential to the accomplishment of the objects and purposes of the powers granted.
But I do not think in some of our holdings we have too narrowly construed the granted powers. See Utah Rapid Transit Co. v. Ogden City, 89 Utah 546, 58 P. 2d 1.
Having concluded that Ogden City does not possess the power to pass the ordinance, it is not imperative that we express an opinion on the due process aspect of the matter. But this is one of those rare cases where a city may, on the eve of a legislative session, be left helpless in one phase of traffic regulation, to wit, the enforcement of rules against over or proscribed parking. If the Justices express themselves as to the basis and extent to which the legislature may go without running athwart of the Constitution, it may guide the next legislature in the passage of legislation applicable to the State at large, or in the giving of all cities of the State powers to pass uniform ordinances for the enforcement of rules against overparking. While all such matters are strictly obiter to this opinion and must be so understood, this is an instance when guidance is indicated.
There cannot be sufficient police officers to keep watch over every parked car to ascertain who parks it and it is doubtful whether citizens would welcome an inquiry by police officers as to who was parking it. The problem then is essentially one of conveniently and without incommensurate difficulty obtaining information as to the person guilty of overparking or parking in a proscribed place. These problems usually arise incident to regulation — regulation of automobile traffic. They are usually solvable by use of the mechanism of a presumption especially where the connection between the known fact and the fact desired to be ascertained does not necessarily permit of logical inference; that is, where the mind cannot necessarily infer one fact *350by logical deduction or inference from the more foundational fact.
I think the providing by law of presumptions cannot be outside of the scope allowed by our State and Federal Constitutions, where reasonable convenience and the exigencies of the situation require it for the purpose of reasonable enforcement of regulatory law.
Certainly legislation which made the possession of liquor found on the person of a defendant evidence that such possession was for the purpose of sale was not unconstitutional in the view of laws prohibiting the sale of liquor absolutely under certain conditions within certain territories, even though it cast upon the defendant the duty of meeting the evidence or otherwise to probably suffer conviction. Our State and Federal Constitutions were not intended to rule out the application of common sense in efforts to strike a balance between preserving individual liberties and the protection of society.
I think we have here a situation fundamentally concerned with traffic regulation. There is only so much downtown parking space in our cities. If there is no way to compel the overparker to be subjected to a penalty for violations, enforcement of ordinances directed against overparking cannot be enforced.
The matter is, therefor, not essentially one of dealing with a crime. In these petty cases of parking violations, fines are levied as sanctions rather than punishments. I think it unrealistic to treat them as if they were crimes calling for the application of the rules designed for the protection of liberties. The penalties do not involve imprisonment and deal with infractions where even the vernacular of criminal law is not applicable because the objective is not aimed at preventing a wrong against the state or against society, but to effectuate traffic regulation and administration. The violations hardly seem to rise to the level of *351mala prohibita. The fines are not punishment for crimes but sanctions.
True, out of the effort to enforce the regulation may come an offense. And this may call even for imprisonment as a more remote result.
Approaching the matter from another angle, more than once in my career on this bench I have called attention to the highly important matter of so interpreting the Constitution as to maintain a balance between protection of society and protection of the rights of individuals constituting our society. Few rights indeed are absolute, and wise judicial policy must recognize that this balance, although in unstable equilibrium, is governed by tacitly recognized play of such judicial policy. It was said in State v. Mason, 94 Utah 501, 78 P. 2d 920, 925, 117 A. L. R. 330:
“This balance between police powers and due process is, therefore, more or less in a state of unstable equilibrium, changing with sociological and economic developments. As the protection of the due process clause recedes, the pólice power advances [or perhaps as the police power advances the protection of the due process clause recedes]. There is always articulation between the two.”
For instance, as illustrative of the instability of this changing balance between advancing police power and receding due process, we may take the case of enforcement of laws or city ordinances relating to the regulation of parking of motor vehicles, more definitely the case of the difficulty of enforcing an ordinance against parking overtime or in a proscribed area. Granted the city has the power to enact an ordinance establishing a rule of evidence binding on the courts, or the legislature has passed a state law applicable to proscribed or excess parking anywhere in the State, how can the enforcement officers make effective the administration of such law?
I opine that an ordinance passed under State granted power which provides that a judicial tribunal having jurisdiction may find an owner or a person registered as owner *352of an automobile guilty of the charge of excess or illegal parking in a proscribed area when it appears from the evidence that the car of such registered owner has been found to have been overparkéd or parked in a proscribed area and such owner, after reasonable notice of the fact of such excess or proscribed parking, fails to bring forth satisfactory proof that he is not the owner, or if the owner, that such car was not overparked or was parked in a proscribed area by him or at his direction, is constitutional.
While such procedure places upon an owner the obligation to free himself from a law imposed presumption of guilt arising from the fact that he appears in the records as the registered owner, I think, in the interests of traffic regulation, such presumption may be indulged without running afoul of constitutional objections respecting failure to accord due process.