Uncommonly Bad Legislating On License Plates

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You’ve got to love the battles that sometimes develop between the Legislature and the higher courts in Texas. Not bloody fights, perhaps but little jabs of words that are part of an admittedly mostly one-sided exchange.

Bradley Clark over at Texas Law Blog (one of our favorite law blogs), discusses a recent opinion from the Court of Criminal Appeals on the law passed a few sessions ago that addresses things that can obscure your license plate. Of course, car dealers render millions of Texans every year in violation of this one with those little plate holders advertising their dealership, though most Texans are none the wiser.

Bradley notes:

Judge Cochran correctly concluded that the majority decided the legal question correctly (i.e., that it is a violation of State law) but that section 502.409(a)(7)(B) “is an uncommonly bad law…because it allows the police to arbitrarily stop, ticket, arrest, and search any person who is driving a car whose license plate frame covers up any portion of that plate’s design.” (emphasis added). And after taking the very unusual position of telling the State Legislature that this section is an “uncommonly bad law,” Judge Cochran goes further and points out that members of the Legislature (as well as members of the Judiciary) are entitled to “special” licenses plates that don’t have all the design work that your’s and mine have and yet the same license plate frame which would obscure our license plate will not obscure their’s.

Now that is amusing and important. I’m kind of shocked at seeing this language from a court of appeals that, on more weighty matters like, oh, say the death penalty, is a national laughing stock:

because it allows the police to arbitrarily stop, ticket, arrest, and search any person who is driving a car whose license plate frame covers up any portion of that plate’s design

While I agree with it being an uncommonly bad law, there are other uncommonly bad laws that haven’t received quite this spirited defense-of-liberties response that this one warranted. Indeed interesting.

Written by Vince Leibowitz

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Vince Leibowitz posted this article under Texas Courts on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 8:45 am You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a comment. Pinging is currently not allowed. View Technorati Linkbacks.