Circuit Split! New Opinion Upholds Warrantless Tire Chalking

Shea posted here about a 2019 opinion from the Sixth Circuit holding that chalking tires for purposes of parking enforcement was a Fourth Amendment search and rejecting at least some of the proposed legal justifications for the practice. That case led to some further proceedings and eventually to a new opinion, Taylor v. City of Saginaw, Michigan, 11 F.4th 483 (6th Cir. 2021), holding that the suspicionless chalking of tires (1) is a search, (2) is not justified as a community caretaking function, and (3) is not justified as an administrative search. The Taylor court ruled that the law was not previously clearly established, so the parking officer whose conduct was at issue was entitled to qualified immunity. But going forward, warrantless tire chalking is a no-no in the Sixth Circuit. Now another circuit has weighed in with a different perspective. A few weeks ago, the Ninth Circuit decided Verdun v. City of San Diego, 51 F.4th 1033 (9th Cir. 2022). The court noted that since the 1970s, San Diego parking officers have placed “an impermanent chalk mark of no more than a few inches on the tread of one tire on a parked vehicle” to help ascertain compliance with time limits on parking: “If a vehicle’s chalk mark is undisturbed after the parking limit has expired, this shows the vehicle has exceeded the time limit for the space.” The plaintiffs in the case alleged that they had received parking tickets after having their tires chalked. Perhaps inspired by Taylor, they [...]