On The Side: Brad Hicks

A Polk County District Court associate judge ruled last month that an Iowa Department of Transportation enforcement officer didn’t have the jurisdiction to issue a 16-year-old driver a speeding ticket.
The skinny is the kid was driving 84 mph in a 55-mph zone near his school just east of Des Moines. The DOT officer wrote him up after he pulled into the parking lot at Southeast Polk High School.
The kid’s attorney challenged the jurisdiction of the DOT officer to issue a ticket involving a non-commercial vehicle. Typically, Iowans see the DOT officers – in the past often identified by the blue vehicles they drove – as enforcement for truck and other commercial haulers. In fact, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled 70 years ago that DOT officers did not have the power to write non-commercial citations, and a 1990 Iowa Attorney General’s ruling followed that lead. The decisions were based on an Iowa statute that says most state officers outside the Department of Public Safety – think Iowa State Patrol – are not allowed to issue non-commercial citations.
The prosecutor argued – to no avail, so far – the attorney general’s ruling dealt with the arrest power of the DOT officers, not their power to write citations.
There are differences in how the DOT officers are trained today, compared to when the law was written, and when the rulings were made 70 and 26 years ago. Primarily, DOT officers today are graduates of the Iowa Law Enforcement Academy. Before, they weren’t.
At this point, that doesn’t matter, the judge said.
The judge is right.
At some point, all of us need to stand up for the rule of law. Our state law is pretty clear about this matter. And we have to salute a district associate judge for standing up for the law and not kowtowing to some idea that it’s OK for law enforcement to do things that it is specifically not allowed to do. If we are not a nation of laws, and rather become a nation of individual judges’ opinions, we become a place friendly to tyranny. The rule of law is our way of treating people and situations in a responsible and fair manner.
To this point, the Legislature has not seen fit to change the law, which it could do rather easily. And given Gov. Branstad’s penchant for having fewer state employees and having them do more things, he would likely sign the change into reality in a heartbeat. He would see it as a way to avoid hiring more state patrol officers – a roster which has been reduced in numbers greatly in recent years. If they wanted an event to make it an issue, it certainly is one that a trained officer couldn’t ticket a 16-year-old driving 84 mph on his way to school.
In the end, given the training and all of our desires to have safe roads, it makes sense to have the DOT officers be legally allowed to write these citations, and perhaps even make arrests in non-commercial instances. However, until the law specifically allows it, let’s celebrate a judge who did it right and a lawyer who made the correct argument. It’s a win for the rule of law.

Brad Hicks is the publisher and editor of the Red Oak Express. Contact him at publisher@redoakexpress.com.