George Maynard of New Hampshire is the only person to win an appeal of his traffic ticket in the US Supreme Court.
Of course, his ticket (actually three of them) was for covering up New Hampshire's state motto with electrician's tape. That might seem like a stupid thing to hand out traffic tickets for but, remember, New Hampshire's state motto is "Live Free or Die". How they could not ticket someone for covering up a state motto like that!
His first ticket, he appeared in court to fight the ticket. The judge found him guilty, fined him $25, and then suspended the sentence based on the presumption of good behavior in the future. In essence, Maynard escaped with paying nothing.
Maynard also decided to show up and fight the second ticket for covering up the motto, but, to make things worse, received a third ticket while awaiting his court date.
The judge found him guilty on the second ticket, fined him $500 and sentenced him to 6 months in prison!
But then the judge suspended all but $50 of the fine and suspended the prison sentence entirely based on the presumption of future good behavior. And then the judge reinstated the $25 fine from the first ticket, since the presumption of good behavior in the future was obviously wrong for the first ticket.
And the judge dismissed the third ticket, feeling he'd adequately made his point.
And then Maynard told the judge he wasn't going to pay the $75 ($25 for the first and $50 for the second). He felt the tickets were unfair and he wasn't going to pay!
And so the judge tossed him in jail for 7 days for contempt of court. (The good behavior only referred to future traffic tickets; not conduct in court.)
By time Maynard got out of jail, a lawyer that had witnessed the second court appearance had gotten in contact with the ACLU. Upon Maynard's release, the lawyer convinced him to appeal the ticket to the US District Court. The US District Court granted an immediate injunction to prevent Maynard from accumulating even more traffic tickets for his license plate and then eventually won their appeal based on a six month prison sentence being an unreasonable punishment for covering a license plate.
New Hampshire appealed the US District Court's decision to the US Supreme Court, claiming the US District Court lacked jurisdiction. Traffic court is a state court and any appeal should have gone up the chain through state appeal courts instead of federal courts.
The US Supreme Court found against the state. In cases of on-going violations of a person's civil rights, US District Courts do have jurisdiction to intervene. While Maynard couldn't appeal a single traffic violation to federal courts, the fact that the state had already given him 3 traffic tickets and had every indication of continuing to violate his civil rights gave the federal courts jurisdiction.
And the US Supreme Court also decided the law itself was a violation of New Hampshire residents' First Amendment Rights - and it was this finding, that the law was violating Maynard's First Amendment Rights, that provided the logic for the US District Court having jurisdiction over Maynard's appeal.
Additionally, since it was the state that had appealed to the US Supreme Court and the state had lost, Maynard's lawyers could recoup the cost of representing him in the US Supreme Court even though they were representing Maynard pro bono (they couldn't charge the state for the initial appeal to the US District Court, since it was Maynard that initiated the appeal).
New Hampshire disagreed, claiming they only had to recoup Maynard's costs, which were zero since he was being represented pro bono.
So Maynard's lawyers filed the proper motions and got a US federal marshall to serve the state with a demand for $21,000. The problem was actually serving any state officials. They simply refused to see him or let him enter their offices.
But, New Hampshire is a little different than most states. Liquor can only be sold from state liquor stores, as opposed to most states where any store having the appropriate license can sell liquor. The state liquor stores are part of the state government and state liquor store employees are state employees.
So, the armed US federal marshall simply showed up at a liquor store and demanded that the cute clerk at the counter give him $21,000!
Obviously, the marshall didn't get his money. In fact, the state got an injunction to prevent the marshall from knocking off any more liquor stores. But the judge did make it clear that the state better come up with a compelling reason why the marshall couldn't collect his $21,000 by going from liquor store to liquor store, because, as the law was written, it sure looked like that would be a valid way for the marshall to collect his debt!
And so the state finally decided they better pay the $21,000 and make this whole nightmare go away!
Funny thing happened several years later. Maynard moved to Connecticut. Their license plates have a motto, "The Constitution State", which Maynard also covered up - and, naturally, he received a ticket for that, too. But, if your name is actually part of a US Supreme Court decision, it usually only takes a phone call from your lawyer to convince the court to dismiss your ticket!
http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/430/430.US.705.75-1453.html
