May 28, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, Civil rights lawyers Hugh Eastwood and Bevis Schock of St. Louis share the story of how they filed three separate lawsuits—all heard by the Missouri Supreme Court in a single landmark morning session, that led to the end of the dreaded red-light ticket cameras in the Show-Me State.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Red light camera
tickets came into being during the early two thousands. The
public was outraged and irritated because the cameras eliminated the
human element. And there are a bunch more reasons why
all of us as taxpayers were annoyed and irritated by
the red light camera ticket. You Eastwood and Beavis Shock
(00:33):
decided to do something about it. There are civil rights
lawyers in Saint Louis, and they filed three separate cases,
all three of which were heard by the Missouri Supreme
Court in one big morning argument. Here's Beavis Shock and
You Eastwood to tell their story.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I got into civil rights law twenty five years ago.
Early in my practice. I ended up working on a
civil rights case on a referral. I felt great about it.
I won my first civil rights trial, and I decided
that I would vastly focus on that in my practice,
which I have done. So.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
The red light camera tickets cranked up.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
And when they first started it was just a little
small program, and the aldermen, I don't think when they
passed it they had any idea what it would turn into.
But in Saint Louis they were issuing these tickets left
and right. And I thought that this idea of giving
people tickets for running through a red light by a
(01:33):
tenth of a second, which a cop would have just ignored,
shortening the yellows, which they were doing to increase the
revenue early morning.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
People coming home from coffee or going to coffee.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
No right on red. There's nobody within two miles right.
The intersection is completely unattended. So the person goes ahead
and goes right on read even though it's a no
right on red, and here comes a red light camera ticket.
No officer would bother with anybody, or if the officer
did bother might pull the person over and say.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Hey, you know you're not supposed to do that. I'm
not going to give you a ticket.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Nobody around it took the human judgment part out of it,
which I didn't like.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And then.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
What happened was a radio personality named Charlie Brennan got
one of these tickets and he called me during a
break in the show and briefly explained that. I said
I will do it on the condition that we do
the entire representation on the air, and he said, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I stayed pulled over.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
We did the first interview right there, and every single
interview I did with Charlie started with the same question, Charlie,
you have a right to a confidential relationship with your attorney.
Would you like to waive that today because there are
hundreds of thousands of people listening. This is the number
one station.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
St.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Louis, the Mighty mocks KMOX, the blowtorch of the Midwest.
And and he said, yes, I would be this, I'd
like to give up my right to confidentiality. And then
we discussed right there like he was. He was a
brand new client, and I agreed to represent him in
the case because I didn't like the way it smelled.
(03:21):
At the end of the day, it was my nose
that sold me this is wrong and it's bad.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
And then we ended.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Up with three or four clients, and we ended up
with three cases at the Supreme Court of Missouri.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And we won them all. After about four.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Years, I'd say that it struck me as fundamentally unfair.
And that was a sentiment I noticed a lot of
people having.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
When we would go on the radio with our client,
who was.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
A radio host, the switchboard would light up when this
topic came up.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
And I think it just struck a court that this was.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Wrong, it was unfair, and it defended a lot of
our fundamental notions of how the relationship between the community
and the police should be and also how our court
system should work. And remember, most people only interact with
the court system in municipal court.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
On a traffic ticket.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
I mean, most people aren't getting arrested for sure serious crimes,
which is a good thing. Most people aren't being hauled
into court and being sued on some complicated theory, which
again is a good thing. So most people don't have
much litigation in their life, and if they have a
negative interaction with the government, it's going to be for
something pretty minor.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
They're going to get a ticket and have to go
to municipal court.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
So it's really important for the relationship between the government
and the community for that process to be seen as fair,
and also for it to be seen as pursuing justice
rather than for profit motive. And so there's a phrase
which is not mine, which is taxation by citation, and
(05:10):
that was what was going on here. And we knew
that this was a revenue grab because one of the
arguments the cities had in these cases is that we
need this money. And that's what struck me as unfaired.
This wasn't about a legitimate exercise of the police power
to promote traffic safety. In fact, if they was about
(05:31):
traffic safety, they would care about who the driver.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Was after all. Here they didn't care. We're just going
to go after the owner.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
One of the things in the red light camera cases
was that people who were not driving were getting tickets
for running a red light. It was that it was
the owner would get the ticket, the owner of the
car because it was done by license plate, and then
who owned that car. That violates some basic principles of
(06:04):
how our criminal law works. Many of the criminal rights,
but not all of them, are in the Fifth and
sixth Amendments. Your right to remain silent, right to be
informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against you,
the right to be confronted with the witnesses against you.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
These are all.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
In those amendments. But interestingly, the right to be presumed
innocence is not in those amendments, but it's deeply ingrained
in our case law and our system of prudence from
the common law of England. We felt that one of
the effects of these cases was to help make those
(06:44):
rights further enshrid in the law.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
We had cases from different cities in our region. Two
of the cases we were in a defensive posture, right
defending someone who owned a car from a red light
ticket or from us in Charlie Brennan's case, a speeding
ticket detective with the camera.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
The other case we were offensive.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
We were seeking to get an injunction to shut down
the City of Saint Louis camera program. And everyone showed up,
including the private camera company. They had their own lawyers,
very good lawyers, lawyers that I respect, very talented, skillful,
(07:28):
well paid lawyers. The debt collectors who were who were
trying to chase people down.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
For these tickets, they had their own lawyers.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Everyone was there.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
There were there were a lot of lawyers on the court.
But yes, that this was not about money for us.
This was not a class action. This was really shutting
down a system, and we were we were able to
do that. I won't say in candor that we were
a little nervous because after this wonderful, unprecedented experience of
(08:03):
having three Missouri Supreme Court opinions issue in one day,
all in your favor, we thought, I mean, that's as
good as it gets.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
We had some nerves because we read a kind of.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Narrow path for these cities to come back and have
another bite at the apple with these red light camera programs,
and so we kind of thought it might be like
whack the mole. But so far in the Saint Louis
region that has not been the case.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Let me add that I think we knew when we
were going through those several years that if we won,
it would help our business, help our business more than
all the advertising in the world.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
In fact, being on the Charlie Brennan Show, this radio
show that has.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
A huge following, you really can't pay for advertising like that.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
No, you can't pay for publicity like that or advertising
like that. When we come back, more of this not
merely amusing piece because it's making us all smile listening
to it, but it gets you a bit angry too.
And this is where our great legal system comes into play,
and great lawyers like you Eastwood and Beav's Shock. Their
(09:13):
stories continue the red light traffic caper. Here on our
American stories, and we continue with our American stories and
(09:42):
the story of the two men who ended red light
traffic cameras in their state and took it to the
state's highest court. Their argument about why these red light
traffic tickets were against the law and an abuse of power.
Let's return to Beavis show in you Eastwood were more
(10:02):
of their story.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
One good favorable article in the paper about a news
story about a win does more than all the buses
and all the billboards in the world, because it helps
not only get one's name in the public eye, so
people call for help, but when one walks into a
judge's courtroom and the judge knows, hey, this guy got.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Me out of my rent light camera ticket, that helps.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And it doesn't mean the judge isn't going to follow
the law and rule as he or she sees fit,
but it does mean.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
That our papers will be read with care. So we
got something out of it.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
And to this day people walk up to me on
the street and say, aren't you beavishock? Didn't you do
that red black camera thing? Yes, thank you so much.
That's such a good thing you did for this community.
That's a big deal.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
And the problem with the whole system, of course, is
that usually the fines were around one hundred bucks.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Sometimes a little more.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
And the problem is it's just not worth it for
most people to fight to take time off from their
jobs or their lives over one hundred dollars. That can
be a lot of money to some people, but it's
not enough money to mount a.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Serious legal defense.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
And so there was this very clever thing that the
red light camera companies, which were for profit companies, were doing,
which was pitching these very cynical strategies to municipalities as
a way to raise money. And we knew these companies
were corrupt because one of the companies, called Redflex, had
(11:47):
executives go to prison. They also had officials in Chicago
and other places get investigated by the federal DOJ.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
And go to prison. So there was something that was
really offensive about this.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
The other thing is that it was really, I guess
what you could call a cross ideological sense of outrage.
Most people driving around living their lives thought that this
was unfair and that it was wrong. And we know
from policing that when policing works, it's because the police
(12:21):
have trust with the community, and that usually involves old
fashioned things like going out and being a regular beat
cop in the community. It could be running traffic I
suspect people don't like getting speeding.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Tickets or traffic tickets.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
But at the same time, if this person is actually
in the community and as someone who is building trust
with the community, that's policing that works. And so there
really wasn't any evidence that red light cameras were having
much of a traffic safety function a lot or the
only evidence was city officials saying, you know what, yep,
(12:57):
in our view, they promote traffic safety, which we just
thought was cynical. In one of these cases, we actually
went on to have a civil trial against the city,
and when the jury saw the revenue that the city
was making the spike and revenue in association with in
fact issuing warrants, they found in favor of our client
and gave her one hundred thousand dollars. So I guess
(13:21):
the final thing it was an opportunity to go all
the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, and at the time,
as a newer lawyer, this was a great case to
work on. And I also knew that if I really
just fouled this whole thing up and really did a
terrible job for my client, which was not my goal,
that at least the worst case, my client would only
be out one hundred dollars, so that was about the
(13:44):
limit of my malpracticed exposure as a young lawyer.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
I would add that it was perverse that people who
were trying to be good citizens suffered more than scoff laws,
and the reason for that was that if people didn't pay,
all they got were a few letters saying pay. Nothing
happened to them. There was no warrant for their arrest,
(14:09):
there was no nothing on their driver's license, nothing happened.
So most citizens really believe in the rule of law.
We all understand once that disappears, a lot of our
liberties will disappear. And good citizens therefore paid the one
hundred dollars, and the bad citizens didn't and nothing happened
(14:32):
to them, so bad conduct was rewarded, and the working
class person with good intentions who understands the importance of
the rule of law is dramatically affected, and the scoff
law schmuck neighbor gets the ticket and doesn't care, and
that contributes to a decay in our community's ability to
(14:55):
live together in a civil manner.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
And that was a part of it that really bothered me.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
I would also say and we got into this in
our case involving the City of Saint Peter's.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
This excerp of Saint Louis.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
The cynicism I think of the city's arguments in favor
for these programs was detected by the jury and the
city's arguments were rejected. So, for example, the city said, well,
this is how we pay.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
For seniors to have transportation.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
This idea being that if somehow you shut down this
red light camera program, you're gonna leave you know, impoverished
grandmothers on the side of the road, unable to travel.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
That was just polony.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Guess what.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Those programs existed beforeward, like cameras, and they exist today.
I suppose there's political support for them, and it provides
a service to members of the community, and that's a
legitimate government function. But the point is is, don't act
like we're attacking grandmothers. The cynicisms of the of the
arguments in favor of these programs, I think is what
(16:08):
helped doom them. There really was not political support for
these It was taxation by citation, which is an improper
use of the police power. We should not be writing
tickets to people or issuing fines to generate revenue. And
(16:29):
so what that judgment does is force not just Saint
Louis County, but cities and counties throughout the state of
Missouri and perhaps nationally because it's applying the First Amendment.
First Amendment doesn't change, but you cross the state line.
What it does is force them to go through their books,
(16:49):
examine their.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Laws, and rewrite that.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
And I know that Beabis knows firsthand from a conversation
he had with a lawyer who practices on the government side,
that's exactly what they're doing. And that's a good thing.
I mean, the idea that you'd ever mix for profit
business and criminal law enforcement or traffic enforcement is nuts, right,
(17:15):
because the incentives.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Are all perverse.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
An interesting question is what will happen in other states.
Does this radio broadcast affect any decisions by lawyers to
do this attack these systems. One of the things that
might happen is people might listened to this and some lawyer,
and it needs to be a lawyer with some experience
and appellate work who's argued at the Supreme Court of
(17:41):
the state before, who's ready to go.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
It's got to be somebody, and the big.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Law firms will never do it right because they are
part of the establishment. They love that money coming into
the government, because they've got government contracts to write up
the law on bond deals for.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Municipal buildings and things.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So it takes a certain level of craziness to want
to do something like this. When we think about America,
John Maynard Casey said, we're all dead in the long run.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Well, my kids aren't.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Going to be dead, and their kids aren't going to
be dead, and their kids' kids aren't going to be dead.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
They're going to be alive. And what a raw deal.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Would we give to our descendants if we let America go,
if we let the delicate balances of the Constitution and
the principles of the Declaration be set aside because they're
not convenient right now, or because people fail to recognize
how well they work and what they mean. And I
(18:43):
understand that the war never ends, but to be able
to work on a case like the red light camera
cases is an opportunity to live in to those beliefs
that we have a duty to our descendants who we
don't know yet, and both my own Jean Pool, my
own kids and their kids, but everybody else's kids too.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
George Washington didn't have any kids. That didn't matter to him.
It doesn't matter whether you do or not. We're part
of of a larger community here.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And great job on that piece by Greg Hengler, and
a special thanks to you Eastwood and to Beavis Shock.
What a great story. Those two guys are both civil
rights lawyers in Saint Louis, and look they're right. I mean,
in the end, the country is formed because of those
general warrants and rits of assistance that allowed British troops
to just come in and search away in American homes.
(19:35):
It was literally the founding reason and the impetus for
the Declaration and for everything else that happened in the Constitution.
And this was, as the lawyer said, taxation by citation.
Government is here to serve us, We're not here to
serve the government. Great work by both you Eastwood and
Beavis Shock. For all the lawyer jokes that you've heard,
(19:58):
this is a nation of laws, and when you need one,
you want a good lawyer to defend your civil rights.
A great story about the rule of law and so
much more here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Red light camera
tickets came into being during the early two thousands. The
public was outraged and irritated because the cameras eliminated the
human element. And there are a bunch more reasons why
all of us as taxpayers were annoyed and irritated by
the red light camera ticket. You Eastwood and Beavis Shock
(00:33):
decided to do something about it. There are civil rights
lawyers in Saint Louis, and they filed three separate cases,
all three of which were heard by the Missouri Supreme
Court in one big morning argument. Here's Beavis Shock and
You Eastwood to tell their story.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
I got into civil rights law twenty five years ago.
Early in my practice. I ended up working on a
civil rights case on a referral. I felt great about it.
I won my first civil rights trial, and I decided
that I would vastly focus on that in my practice,
which I have done. So.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
The red light camera tickets cranked up.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
And when they first started it was just a little
small program, and the aldermen, I don't think when they
passed it they had any idea what it would turn into.
But in Saint Louis they were issuing these tickets left
and right. And I thought that this idea of giving
people tickets for running through a red light by a
(01:33):
tenth of a second, which a cop would have just ignored,
shortening the yellows, which they were doing to increase the
revenue early morning.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
People coming home from coffee or going to coffee.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
No right on red. There's nobody within two miles right.
The intersection is completely unattended. So the person goes ahead
and goes right on read even though it's a no
right on red, and here comes a red light camera ticket.
No officer would bother with anybody, or if the officer
did bother might pull the person over and say.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Hey, you know you're not supposed to do that. I'm
not going to give you a ticket.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Nobody around it took the human judgment part out of it,
which I didn't like.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
And then.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
What happened was a radio personality named Charlie Brennan got
one of these tickets and he called me during a
break in the show and briefly explained that. I said
I will do it on the condition that we do
the entire representation on the air, and he said, okay.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I stayed pulled over.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
We did the first interview right there, and every single
interview I did with Charlie started with the same question, Charlie,
you have a right to a confidential relationship with your attorney.
Would you like to waive that today because there are
hundreds of thousands of people listening. This is the number
one station.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
St.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Louis, the Mighty mocks KMOX, the blowtorch of the Midwest.
And and he said, yes, I would be this, I'd
like to give up my right to confidentiality. And then
we discussed right there like he was. He was a
brand new client, and I agreed to represent him in
the case because I didn't like the way it smelled.
(03:21):
At the end of the day, it was my nose
that sold me this is wrong and it's bad.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
And then we ended.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Up with three or four clients, and we ended up
with three cases at the Supreme Court of Missouri.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And we won them all. After about four.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Years, I'd say that it struck me as fundamentally unfair.
And that was a sentiment I noticed a lot of
people having.
Speaker 4 (03:51):
When we would go on the radio with our client,
who was.
Speaker 5 (03:54):
A radio host, the switchboard would light up when this
topic came up.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
And I think it just struck a court that this was.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
Wrong, it was unfair, and it defended a lot of
our fundamental notions of how the relationship between the community
and the police should be and also how our court
system should work. And remember, most people only interact with
the court system in municipal court.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
On a traffic ticket.
Speaker 5 (04:25):
I mean, most people aren't getting arrested for sure serious crimes,
which is a good thing. Most people aren't being hauled
into court and being sued on some complicated theory, which
again is a good thing. So most people don't have
much litigation in their life, and if they have a
negative interaction with the government, it's going to be for
something pretty minor.
Speaker 4 (04:43):
They're going to get a ticket and have to go
to municipal court.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
So it's really important for the relationship between the government
and the community for that process to be seen as fair,
and also for it to be seen as pursuing justice
rather than for profit motive. And so there's a phrase
which is not mine, which is taxation by citation, and
(05:10):
that was what was going on here. And we knew
that this was a revenue grab because one of the
arguments the cities had in these cases is that we
need this money. And that's what struck me as unfaired.
This wasn't about a legitimate exercise of the police power
to promote traffic safety. In fact, if they was about
(05:31):
traffic safety, they would care about who the driver.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Was after all. Here they didn't care. We're just going
to go after the owner.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
One of the things in the red light camera cases
was that people who were not driving were getting tickets
for running a red light. It was that it was
the owner would get the ticket, the owner of the
car because it was done by license plate, and then
who owned that car. That violates some basic principles of
(06:04):
how our criminal law works. Many of the criminal rights,
but not all of them, are in the Fifth and
sixth Amendments. Your right to remain silent, right to be
informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against you,
the right to be confronted with the witnesses against you.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
These are all.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
In those amendments. But interestingly, the right to be presumed
innocence is not in those amendments, but it's deeply ingrained
in our case law and our system of prudence from
the common law of England. We felt that one of
the effects of these cases was to help make those
(06:44):
rights further enshrid in the law.
Speaker 5 (06:46):
We had cases from different cities in our region. Two
of the cases we were in a defensive posture, right
defending someone who owned a car from a red light
ticket or from us in Charlie Brennan's case, a speeding
ticket detective with the camera.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
The other case we were offensive.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
We were seeking to get an injunction to shut down
the City of Saint Louis camera program. And everyone showed up,
including the private camera company. They had their own lawyers,
very good lawyers, lawyers that I respect, very talented, skillful,
(07:28):
well paid lawyers. The debt collectors who were who were
trying to chase people down.
Speaker 4 (07:33):
For these tickets, they had their own lawyers.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Everyone was there.
Speaker 5 (07:36):
There were there were a lot of lawyers on the court.
But yes, that this was not about money for us.
This was not a class action. This was really shutting
down a system, and we were we were able to
do that. I won't say in candor that we were
a little nervous because after this wonderful, unprecedented experience of
(08:03):
having three Missouri Supreme Court opinions issue in one day,
all in your favor, we thought, I mean, that's as
good as it gets.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
We had some nerves because we read a kind of.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
Narrow path for these cities to come back and have
another bite at the apple with these red light camera programs,
and so we kind of thought it might be like
whack the mole. But so far in the Saint Louis
region that has not been the case.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Let me add that I think we knew when we
were going through those several years that if we won,
it would help our business, help our business more than
all the advertising in the world.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
In fact, being on the Charlie Brennan Show, this radio
show that has.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
A huge following, you really can't pay for advertising like that.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
No, you can't pay for publicity like that or advertising
like that. When we come back, more of this not
merely amusing piece because it's making us all smile listening
to it, but it gets you a bit angry too.
And this is where our great legal system comes into play,
and great lawyers like you Eastwood and Beav's Shock. Their
(09:13):
stories continue the red light traffic caper. Here on our
American stories, and we continue with our American stories and
(09:42):
the story of the two men who ended red light
traffic cameras in their state and took it to the
state's highest court. Their argument about why these red light
traffic tickets were against the law and an abuse of power.
Let's return to Beavis show in you Eastwood were more
(10:02):
of their story.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
One good favorable article in the paper about a news
story about a win does more than all the buses
and all the billboards in the world, because it helps
not only get one's name in the public eye, so
people call for help, but when one walks into a
judge's courtroom and the judge knows, hey, this guy got.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Me out of my rent light camera ticket, that helps.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
And it doesn't mean the judge isn't going to follow
the law and rule as he or she sees fit,
but it does mean.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
That our papers will be read with care. So we
got something out of it.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
And to this day people walk up to me on
the street and say, aren't you beavishock? Didn't you do
that red black camera thing? Yes, thank you so much.
That's such a good thing you did for this community.
That's a big deal.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
And the problem with the whole system, of course, is
that usually the fines were around one hundred bucks.
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Sometimes a little more.
Speaker 5 (11:09):
And the problem is it's just not worth it for
most people to fight to take time off from their
jobs or their lives over one hundred dollars. That can
be a lot of money to some people, but it's
not enough money to mount a.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
Serious legal defense.
Speaker 5 (11:24):
And so there was this very clever thing that the
red light camera companies, which were for profit companies, were doing,
which was pitching these very cynical strategies to municipalities as
a way to raise money. And we knew these companies
were corrupt because one of the companies, called Redflex, had
(11:47):
executives go to prison. They also had officials in Chicago
and other places get investigated by the federal DOJ.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
And go to prison. So there was something that was
really offensive about this.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
The other thing is that it was really, I guess
what you could call a cross ideological sense of outrage.
Most people driving around living their lives thought that this
was unfair and that it was wrong. And we know
from policing that when policing works, it's because the police
(12:21):
have trust with the community, and that usually involves old
fashioned things like going out and being a regular beat
cop in the community. It could be running traffic I
suspect people don't like getting speeding.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
Tickets or traffic tickets.
Speaker 5 (12:36):
But at the same time, if this person is actually
in the community and as someone who is building trust
with the community, that's policing that works. And so there
really wasn't any evidence that red light cameras were having
much of a traffic safety function a lot or the
only evidence was city officials saying, you know what, yep,
(12:57):
in our view, they promote traffic safety, which we just
thought was cynical. In one of these cases, we actually
went on to have a civil trial against the city,
and when the jury saw the revenue that the city
was making the spike and revenue in association with in
fact issuing warrants, they found in favor of our client
and gave her one hundred thousand dollars. So I guess
(13:21):
the final thing it was an opportunity to go all
the way to the Missouri Supreme Court, and at the time,
as a newer lawyer, this was a great case to
work on. And I also knew that if I really
just fouled this whole thing up and really did a
terrible job for my client, which was not my goal,
that at least the worst case, my client would only
be out one hundred dollars, so that was about the
(13:44):
limit of my malpracticed exposure as a young lawyer.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
I would add that it was perverse that people who
were trying to be good citizens suffered more than scoff laws,
and the reason for that was that if people didn't pay,
all they got were a few letters saying pay. Nothing
happened to them. There was no warrant for their arrest,
(14:09):
there was no nothing on their driver's license, nothing happened.
So most citizens really believe in the rule of law.
We all understand once that disappears, a lot of our
liberties will disappear. And good citizens therefore paid the one
hundred dollars, and the bad citizens didn't and nothing happened
(14:32):
to them, so bad conduct was rewarded, and the working
class person with good intentions who understands the importance of
the rule of law is dramatically affected, and the scoff
law schmuck neighbor gets the ticket and doesn't care, and
that contributes to a decay in our community's ability to
(14:55):
live together in a civil manner.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
And that was a part of it that really bothered me.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
I would also say and we got into this in
our case involving the City of Saint Peter's.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
This excerp of Saint Louis.
Speaker 5 (15:11):
The cynicism I think of the city's arguments in favor
for these programs was detected by the jury and the
city's arguments were rejected. So, for example, the city said, well,
this is how we pay.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
For seniors to have transportation.
Speaker 5 (15:32):
This idea being that if somehow you shut down this
red light camera program, you're gonna leave you know, impoverished
grandmothers on the side of the road, unable to travel.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
That was just polony.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
Guess what.
Speaker 5 (15:45):
Those programs existed beforeward, like cameras, and they exist today.
I suppose there's political support for them, and it provides
a service to members of the community, and that's a
legitimate government function. But the point is is, don't act
like we're attacking grandmothers. The cynicisms of the of the
arguments in favor of these programs, I think is what
(16:08):
helped doom them. There really was not political support for
these It was taxation by citation, which is an improper
use of the police power. We should not be writing
tickets to people or issuing fines to generate revenue. And
(16:29):
so what that judgment does is force not just Saint
Louis County, but cities and counties throughout the state of
Missouri and perhaps nationally because it's applying the First Amendment.
First Amendment doesn't change, but you cross the state line.
What it does is force them to go through their books,
(16:49):
examine their.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
Laws, and rewrite that.
Speaker 5 (16:52):
And I know that Beabis knows firsthand from a conversation
he had with a lawyer who practices on the government side,
that's exactly what they're doing. And that's a good thing.
I mean, the idea that you'd ever mix for profit
business and criminal law enforcement or traffic enforcement is nuts, right,
(17:15):
because the incentives.
Speaker 4 (17:16):
Are all perverse.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
An interesting question is what will happen in other states.
Does this radio broadcast affect any decisions by lawyers to
do this attack these systems. One of the things that
might happen is people might listened to this and some lawyer,
and it needs to be a lawyer with some experience
and appellate work who's argued at the Supreme Court of
(17:41):
the state before, who's ready to go.
Speaker 3 (17:43):
It's got to be somebody, and the big.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Law firms will never do it right because they are
part of the establishment. They love that money coming into
the government, because they've got government contracts to write up
the law on bond deals for.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
Municipal buildings and things.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
So it takes a certain level of craziness to want
to do something like this. When we think about America,
John Maynard Casey said, we're all dead in the long run.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Well, my kids aren't.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Going to be dead, and their kids aren't going to
be dead, and their kids' kids aren't going to be dead.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
They're going to be alive. And what a raw deal.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Would we give to our descendants if we let America go,
if we let the delicate balances of the Constitution and
the principles of the Declaration be set aside because they're
not convenient right now, or because people fail to recognize
how well they work and what they mean. And I
(18:43):
understand that the war never ends, but to be able
to work on a case like the red light camera
cases is an opportunity to live in to those beliefs
that we have a duty to our descendants who we
don't know yet, and both my own Jean Pool, my
own kids and their kids, but everybody else's kids too.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
George Washington didn't have any kids. That didn't matter to him.
It doesn't matter whether you do or not. We're part
of of a larger community here.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
And great job on that piece by Greg Hengler, and
a special thanks to you Eastwood and to Beavis Shock.
What a great story. Those two guys are both civil
rights lawyers in Saint Louis, and look they're right. I mean,
in the end, the country is formed because of those
general warrants and rits of assistance that allowed British troops
to just come in and search away in American homes.
(19:35):
It was literally the founding reason and the impetus for
the Declaration and for everything else that happened in the Constitution.
And this was, as the lawyer said, taxation by citation.
Government is here to serve us, We're not here to
serve the government. Great work by both you Eastwood and
Beavis Shock. For all the lawyer jokes that you've heard,
(19:58):
this is a nation of laws, and when you need one,
you want a good lawyer to defend your civil rights.
A great story about the rule of law and so
much more here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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