Lights, Cameras, Constitution: Reviving Automated Traffic Enforcement in Minneapolis

*Hayden Cole

Imagine it’s August 2005, and you’re on an emotional drive home from a game at the Metrodome. The Twins’ loss was disappointing, and the playoffs are officially out of reach.¹ To emphasize this moment, your car radio plays Coldplay’s recently released “Fix You.” A few days later, an envelope arrives in your mailbox. You tear it open and find a grainy traffic camera photo of your car driving through a red light. As reality sinks in, “Fix You” reenters your mind. The song’s opening line, “When you try your best, but you don’t succeed,” is a bitter reminder of your failed attempt to beat the light.²  

Well, besides the Metrodome being gone, you don’t have to imagine. The Twins are well out of contention, music streaming means you can listen to Coldplay whenever you want, and, after an eighteen-year hiatus, traffic enforcement cameras are back in town.³ That’s right, Minneapolis is again attempting to navigate the legal minefield that is electronic traffic enforcement.⁴ But what went wrong the first time? The more pressing question: Does the new program pass legal muster? 

Minneapolis’s first attempt at automated traffic enforcement was brief. In the summer of 2005, automated traffic cameras began photographing license plates of cars running red lights, followed by police mailing the registered owner a citation.⁵ In 2007, less than two years after their implementation, the Minnesota Supreme Court invalidated the city ordinances that established the first traffic camera program.⁶ The court held the ordinances improperly shifted liability for traffic light violations from the driver to the registered owner of the vehicle.⁷  This was in contrast with the state’s traffic enforcement regime based on driver liability and the requirement for traffic uniformity across the state.⁸ After that decision, drivers in Minneapolis were once again able to travel without the fear of automated traffic enforcement. 

Now, the state legislature has authorized the city of Minneapolis to implement automated traffic enforcement. Even still, if state law now poses no threat to traffic cameras, what other challenges are there? Has the state legislature crafted a statute that weaves its way through these challenges? To answer these questions, we must first identify what limitations are in place or whether the statute imposes civil or criminal penalties. The first place to look is the intent of the legislature.⁹ 

For violations captured by these traffic cameras, the legislature is explicit. The sections that outline the penalties for traffic camera-based citations only allow for petty misdemeanors.¹⁰ As defined, petty misdemeanors “do[] not constitute a crime.”¹¹

Yet, even when the legislative intent may be clearly civil, further inquiry may be required as to “‘whether the statutory scheme was so punitive either in purpose or effect,’ as to ‘transform what was clearly intended as a civil remedy into a criminal penalty.’”¹² In this further inquiry, the Supreme Court provides this useful, yet not dispositive nor exhaustive list of questions:  

“Whether the sanction involves an affirmative disability or restraint, whether it has historically been regarded as a punishment, whether it comes into play only on a finding of scienter, whether its operation will promote the traditional aims of punishment — retribution and deterrence, whether the behavior to which it applies is already a crime, whether an alternative purpose to which it may rationally be connected is assignable for it, and whether it appears excessive in relation to the alternative purpose assigned . . . .”¹³ 

When this inquiry has been performed on substantially similar traffic camera programs, courts have overwhelmingly found the penalties to be civil in nature.¹⁴ A review of these cases reveals that courts have found only that the behavior to which traffic cameras apply may simultaneously also be a crime, and monetary penalties have at least some aspects of deterrence to suggest that similar traffic camera programs have criminal penalties.¹⁵ Given the rest of the factors support a finding that traffic cameras impose a civil penalty, it is safe to assume a court in Minnesota would rule as such. 

Operating under the safe assumption that these new traffic cameras impose only civil penalties, it appears the number of protections for drivers begins to decrease. By its terms and interpretation, the Sixth Amendment is no longer applicable.¹⁶ Similarly, the Fifth Amendment’s Grand Jury Clause,¹⁷ Double Jeopardy Clause,¹⁸ and Takings Clause¹⁹ are also inapplicable. The Self-Incrimination Clause and the Eighth Amendment are sparingly applicable outside the context of criminal prosecution.²⁰ However, contesting the citation data is far from a “genuine compulsion of testimony.”²¹ Further, with a maximum fine of $80.00, any proportionality determination fails.²² 

Seemingly, the use of traffic enforcement cameras does not present an issue relating to the invasion of the right to privacy. Fourth Amendment searches only become unreasonable when they intrude upon a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy.²³ These cameras will only be capturing photos of a vehicle’s rear license plate and limited data on surrounding vehicles to identify the violation.²⁴ For license plates, “it is unreasonable to have an expectation of privacy in an object required by law to be located in a place ordinarily in plain view from the exterior of the automobile.”²⁵ It is highly unlikely that the cameras would be considered unreasonable invasions of privacy, if considered an invasion at all. Assuming the Fourteenth Amendment similarly protects a constitutional right to informational privacy, and following the same reasoning for the Fourth Amendment, it is hard to see a court considering license plate information as “personal matters.”²⁶

Given the fluid nature of procedural due process, requiring only such “protections as the particular situation demands,” the statute likely provides constitutionally sufficient due process safeguards.²⁷ What a particular situation demands is arrived at by balancing the private and government interests at play and “the risk of an erroneous deprivation of [private] interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards.”²⁸ The private interest at stake here, $80.00, is less than the “relatively minor” amounts identified in similar instances.²⁹ That, in tandem with a readily identifiable government interest in protecting public health and safety, means the state enjoys “great leeway in adopting summary procedures.”³⁰ In this instance, and to the credit of the state, the procedural protections seem robust, complying with some recognized standards.³¹

While disparate impacts of the program remain to be seen, the State of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis have exercised great caution in ensuring the law is facially neutral and the program would resist an equal protection claim. Determining a possible discriminatory intent of a facially neutral law “demands a sensitive inquiry into such circumstantial and direct evidence of intent as may be available.”³² Any such inquiry reveals the statute’s mandate: “that the cameras are placed in geographically distinct areas and in multiple communities with differing socioeconomic conditions.”³³ Further, the government’s interest in the health and safety advanced by the program is extended by the requirement that all the cameras be located within two thousand feet of a school.³⁴ All of this has been reiterated in reports produced by the city.³⁵ Thus, any equal protection claim seems futile. 

Minneapolis’s revival of automated traffic enforcement cameras seems able to evade all constitutional obstacles. This represents a thoughtful recalibration, imposing purely civil penalties and embedding constitutional protections that safeguard against undue invasions of privacy, due process violations, and equal protection concerns. Just as the Twins demonstrate resilience, so too has the legislature. This time, drivers can rest assured that their rights remain protected as they are once again under these ever-watchful electronic eyes.  

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* Hayden Cole, J.D. Candidate, University of St. Thomas School of Law Class of 2026 (Senior Editor). 

1. See 2005 Minnesota Twins Schedule and Results, Baseball-Reference.com, https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2005-schedule-scores.shtml (last visited Oct. 2, 2025). ↩︎
2. Coldplay, Fix You, on X&Y (Parlophone 2005). ↩︎
3. See 2025 Minnesota Twins Schedule and Results, Baseball-Reference.com, https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIN/2025-schedule-scores.shtml (last visited Oct. 2, 2025); Minn. Stat. § 169.147 subdiv. 2 (2024). ↩︎
4. Minn. Stat. § 169.147 (2024). ↩︎
5. See State v. Kuhlman, 729 N.W.2d 577, 578–79 (Minn. 2007). ↩︎
6. Id. at 578, 584. ↩︎
7. Id. at 582.  ↩︎
8. Minn. Stat. § 169.01 (2024); Minn. Stat. § 169.022 (2024).  ↩︎
9. Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93, 99 (1997). ↩︎
10. Minn. Stat. § 169.06, subdiv. 10 (2024); Minn. Stat. § 169.14, subdiv. 13 (2024). ↩︎
11. Minn. Stat. § 609.02, subdiv. 4a (2025); see Minn. Stat. § 609.015, subdiv. 2 (2025) (“Unless expressly stated otherwise, or the context otherwise requires, the provisions of this chapter also apply to crimes created by statute other than in this chapter.”). ↩︎
12. Hudson, 522 U.S. at 99 (first citing United States v. Ward, 448 U.S. 242 at 248–49 (1980); and then citing Rex Trailer Co. v. United States, 350 U.S. 148, 154 (1956)) (citations omitted).  ↩︎
13. Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez, 372 U.S. 144, 168–69 (1963). ↩︎
14. Bevis v. City of New Orleans, No. 11-30711, at *6 (5th Cir. June 11, 2012); Mills v. City of Springfield, No. 2:10-CV-04036-NKL, at *33–34 (W.D. Mo. Sep. 3, 2010); Balaban v. City of Cleveland, No. 1:07-cv-1366, at *12 (N.D. Ohio Feb. 5, 2010); Kilper v. City of Arnold, No. 4:08-cv-0267 TCM, at *49–57 (E.D. Mo. July 23, 2009); Mendenhall v. City of Akron, No. 5:06-CV-139, at *16–19 (N.D. Ohio Dec. 9, 2008); Shavitz v. City of High Point, 270 F. Supp. 2d 702, 714–17 (M.D.N.C. 2003). ↩︎
15. Bevis, No. 11-30711, at *6; Balaban, No. 1:07-cv-1366, at *12. ↩︎
16. U.S. Const. amend. VI; United States v. Zucker, 161 U.S. 475, 481 (1896) (“The Sixth Amendment relates to a prosecution of an accused person which is technically criminal in its nature.”). ↩︎
17. Palko v. State of Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319, 323 (1937), overruled by Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784 (1969) (“[P]rosecutions by a state, presentment or indictment by a grand jury may give way to informations at the instance of a public officer.”); see Minn. Stat. § 169.02, subdiv. 1 (2024). ↩︎
18. Hudson, 522 U.S. at 99 (“The [Double Jeopardy] Clause protects only against the imposition of multiple criminal punishments for the same offense.” (emphasis added)); see supra text accompanying notes 9–10. ↩︎
19. Mills, No. 2:10-CV-04036-NKL, at *12 (citing Keystone Bituminous Coal Ass’n v. DeBenedictis, 480 U.S. 470, 495 (1987)) (“[T]he City of Springfield has merely exercised its police power to protect public safety. . . .”).  ↩︎
20. Michigan v. Tucker, 417 U.S. 433, 440 (1974); Austin v. United States, 509 U.S. 602, 607–08 (1993). ↩︎
21. Tucker, 417 U.S. at 440. ↩︎
22. Bevis v. City of New Orleans, No. 10-4161, at *16–18 (E.D. La. July 15, 2011) (collecting cases). ↩︎
23. Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 362 (1967) (Harlan, J., concurring). ↩︎
24. Minn. Stat. § 169.147, subdiv. 15. ↩︎
25. New York v. Class, 475 U.S. 106, 114 (1986). ↩︎
26. Whalen v. Roe, 429 U.S. 589, 599–600 (1977); see Nixon v. Adm’r of Gen. Servs., 433 U.S. 425, 457 (1977). NASA v. Nelson, 562 U.S. 134, 148–56 (2011). ↩︎
27. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 334 (1976) (citing Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 481 (1972)).  ↩︎
28. Id. at 335. ↩︎
29. Bevis v. City of New Orleans, 686 F.3d 277, 280 (5th Cir. 2012). ↩︎
30. Mackey v. Montrym, 443 U.S. 1, 17 (1979). ↩︎
31. See generally Minn. Stat. § 169.147 subdiv. 10; Henry J. Friendly, Some Kind of Hearing, 123 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1267 (1975). ↩︎
32. Vill. of Arlington Heights v. Metro. Hous. Dev. Corp., 429 U.S. 252, 266 (1977). ↩︎
33. Minn. Stat. § 169.147, subdiv. 15. ↩︎
34. Id. ↩︎
35. City of Minneapolis, Traffic Safety Camera Pilot State Law Summary (Oct. 1, 2024); City of Minneapolis, Traffic Safety Camera Pilot Overview (Feb. 11, 2025). ↩︎