Topic: Traffic Laws
New Virginia Driving Law Shows Its Holes The conviction of former University of Mary Washington President William Frawley demonstrates how lopsided the new Virginia driving fines are.by Walt Thiessen
(libertarian)
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
The Richmond Times-Dispatchreported today that former University of Mary Washington President William Frawley, "pleaded yesterday to a driving-under-the-influence charge in Fredericksburg General District Court as part of a plea agreement." He heads to another court today on another charge of the same kind.
Why is this signficant? Because of the fine the judge imposed. The judge fined Frawley $500. Does that sound unreasonable? Not really, except that under Virginia's new, draconian traffic laws as reported in a Washington Post article in June 2007, the fine should have been $300 for a first time offender plus another $2,250 fine from the Commonwealth of Virginia as part of the new law which is aimed at using these fines to pay for an expanded highway budget.
So why didn't Frawley get the extra $2,000+ fine? Because Frawley doesn't live in Virginia. He lives in Maryland.
The Times-Dispatch article didn't mention that the new, extra fine doesn't apply. They were obviously much more concerned with the fact that Frawley is now a disgraced ex-university president. But the fact is that the Times-Dispatch should be concerned. All Virginia residents should be concerned, because the new law clearly has nothing to do with traffic justice. It has to do with raising more revenues for the state.
I wonder how the rest of Virginia feels about this? I, for one, think it shows just how sick the new law really is.
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The views expressed in this
article are those of Walt Thiessen only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Walt Thiessen is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
This article goes to show that this law is a violation of constitutional rights. It denies equal protection under law. However, I would also like to point out that this is not the only reason this law is unconstitutional...
This law is also unconstitutional based on due process of law. In order to assess civil penalties, plaintiffs are required to file civil proceedings. These new laws circumvent this process by applying civil penalties to a criminal/general district violation. Where is the due process for these civil remedial fees? It doesn't exist.
Write your legislators and tell them you oppose this law because of this. Why, you may ask? Because many legislators have gotten the message that Virginians don't like the fees because it does not apply to drivers from all jurisdictions, therefore, when legislation is introduced to make it apply to all drivers, they will operate on the assumption that it is then consititutional, but it is not.
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