The New Miami speed camera case parked for good and the tiny village owes speeders zero

During the argument she asked New Miami’s outside counsel James Englert if they should drop it.

“Procedurally the Court of Appeals has agreed with you, so the question is if this has no far-reaching ramifications, not great general public interest, (the new law) takes care of the problem, would this be an opportunity for us to improvidently allow this case,” O’Connor asked.

Englert said “the court does not need to rule on this case because there is a large body of Ohio law, Ohio cases are all on the side of the village here.”

The process New Miami used was flawed, according to two Butler County Common Pleas court judges, because the camera program does not allow drivers to obtain discovery, subpoena witnesses, or question the people at Maryland-based OptoTraffic who calibrated the cameras and ran the program. The 12th District Court of Appeals decided it was fine, so the speeders took it to the Supreme Court.

The village has spent more than $460,000 fighting this case since 2013. The litigation has taken three visits to the 12th District and two visits to the Ohio Supreme Court, where jurisdiction was denied. New Miami challenged the lower court’s rulings on class action status twice and a sovereign immunity issue. Until Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Oster issued his final judgment, the village could not appeal the entire case.

The high court accepts about 6% of discretionary appeals annually and they took the case by a vote of 4 to 3 with Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor and justices Patrick Fischer and R. Patrick DeWine dissenting.