{"id":47582,"date":"2021-03-08T11:47:25","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T16:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=47582"},"modified":"2021-03-08T15:47:52","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T20:47:52","slug":"ia-parking-violation-justifies-police-citizen-encounter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=47582","title":{"rendered":"IA: Parking violation justifies police-citizen encounter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A parking violation justifies a police encounter with the driver. Here, the vehicle was obstructing, and the officer wasn\u2019t obliged to merely leave a parking ticket on the car. The encounter led to an OWI arrest and conviction. State v. Warren<\/a>, 2021 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 19 (Mar. 5, 2021):<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In contrast to the two cases Warren cites, every federal court of appeals that has considered this issue has held that a parking violation, even if punishable only as a civil infraction, is a traffic violation that constitutes probable cause to stop the motorist. See Johnson, 874 F.3d at 573-74 (7th Cir. 2017) (concluding there is no “special rule” distinguishing moving and parking violations and upholding the officer’s seizure of the defendant after witnessing the defendant park illegally); United States v. Choudhry, 461 F.3d 1097, 1101-04 (9th Cir. 2006) (holding an officer’s observation of a parking violation under California’s civil-administrative enforcement provided reasonable suspicion for the officer to seize the vehicle’s occupants), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1236 (2007); Flores v. City of Palacios, 381 F.3d 391, 402-03, 403 n.9 (5th Cir. 2004) (holding the officer had authority to detain the defendant after observing her park on the wrong side of a two-way street in violation of state law); United States v. Copeland, 321 F.3d 582, 594 (6th Cir. 2002) (“[A]n officer can effect a stop based upon a driver’s failure to comply with Michigan’s parking regulations \u2026.”); see also United States v. Spinner, 475 F.3d 356, 358 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (acknowledging federal circuits “have found no legally meaningful distinction between a parking and a moving violation” for Terry stop purposes, but finding it unnecessary to address the issue). To illustrate, in United States v. Choudhry, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion to suppress evidence obtained during law enforcement’s investigatory traffic stop of a vehicle to enforce a parking violation in California. 461 F.3d at 1101. There, police officers observed a vehicle parked illegally and saw the vehicle’s occupants make “hurried movements” that led the officers to believe the occupants were engaging in possibly illegal activity. Id. at 1098-99. Consequently, the officers turned on their emergency vehicle lights and seized the occupants for investigatory purposes. Id.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A parking violation justifies a police encounter with the driver. Here, the vehicle was obstructing, and the officer wasn\u2019t obliged to merely leave a parking ticket on the car. The encounter led to an OWI arrest and conviction. State v. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reasonable-suspicion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47591,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47582\/revisions\/47591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}