Gillespie argues that having to pay a $300 filing fee in order to appeal a parking ticket deprives citizens of their rights to pursue their case.
Vincent Gillespie, seein in a 2005 file photo, stands in thr small parking lot off Old South Street in Northampton where his car was ticketed on July 19, 2005. Ever hear the one about the guy who took a parking ticket all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court?
Probably never happened, but Vincent Gillespie has come close.
How close?
Try the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. When that didn't work, Gillespie brought his parking ticket case to the state Legislature, which crafted a bill that didn't quite make it to the House floor by the end of its session this week.
Now, it's wait until next year. That's OK. Vincent Gillespie can wait. He's nothing if not persistent.
I ran into Gillespie a few weeks ago in a local cafe. He was online, researching his various legal causes. The time before that, I saw him in the law library of the Franklin County Courthouse. I was writing a story for The Republican and MassLive.com, and he was researching the parking ticket thing.
Vincent Gillespie is a striking man of 50 with a handsome salt-and-pepper beard and piercing eyes. In researching this column, I realized he looks a lot like his father. Gregory Gillespie, judging from his self portraits, was an intense man who figured out how to turn that intensity into art.
Way back when Vincent was a little boy, Gregory Gillespie won a Fulbright to hone his art in Rome, much to the excitement of him and his wife.
"I remember my parents dancing on the tables," Vincent Gillespie recalled.
In Italy, young Vincent got dragged around to a lot of museums but, all in all, he enjoyed the experience. When the family returned to the U.S., Vincent moved around a bit, living in San Francisco for a while but always returning to the Pioneer Valley, where his parents were.
In 2000, Gregory Gillespie hanged himself in his Belchertown home. Vincent promptly sued his father's second wife over his estate. That suit has not prevailed in court, but Vincent is still working on it.
His main focus, however, is the parking ticket crusade.
On July 19, 2005, Vincent Gillespie parked his car in a small municipal lot on Conz Street in Northampton. As he was walking away, he noticed a parking officer writing him out a ticket. Vincent argued that there were no signs prohibiting parking and that his car was not blocking anything. The officer handed him the $15 ticket.
Gillespie promptly walked over to the parking office, only to be told to fill out a form. When he went back to his car, there was a second ticket on the windshield. He retraced his steps to the parking office.
Vincent Gillespie learned it was up to a clerk to review his complaints, and that this would be done without his consultation. The clerk dismissed the second ticket but not the first. Gillespie was not mollified. In fact, he was downright outraged when he learned what his recourse was.
Gillespie's only course of appeal was to go to Superior Court, where he had to pay some $300 in filing fees, an amount that was nonrefundable whether or not he prevailed in his argument about the $15 parking ticket.
With the American Civil Liberties Union now on board, Vincent plunged ahead. He filed a case in that same Hampshire Superior Court, maintaining that the system was depriving him of his constitutional right to pursue his case. Judge Bertha D. Josephson ordered Northampton to institute a new system in which complainants can argue their parking tickets in person before a clerk. However, she disagreed that the appeals process in Superior Court was unconstitutional.
Vincent took it the next step. He appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court. Last July, the high court sided with Josephson, saying a municipality could be swamped with frivolous appeals if Massachusetts changed its system.
Vincent has written a detailed analysis and rebuttal of that ruling. It's posted on his website, www.massdriversrights.com.
Several state representatives were sympathetic enough to Gillespie's cause to co-author a bill that would relegate parking ticket appeals to small claims court. It got hung up in the Joint House and Senate Judiciary Committee, however, and has yet to come to a vote.
Attorney William Newman, the local ACLU representative, has been supporting Gillespie in court and credits him with making it possible for people to argue their tickets in person.
"He's accomplished something that should not go unnoticed," Newman said.
According to Newman, Massachusetts is the only state in the country that makes the cost of appealing a parking ticket prohibitive. "Massachusetts makes it impossible to have an independent judicial officer hear your case," Newman said.
Meanwhile, Vincent Gillespie is preparing for the next legislative session. Although he long ago earned an engineering degree, Gillespie, a Greenfield resident, lives on his inheritance and folds all his energy into his causes.
He has interesting theories about the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and about the world's hidden power structure. He will be glad to share them with you if you ask. You can also get his thoughts on his website.
Fred Contrada is a staff writer for The Republican; he may be reached at fcontrada@repub.com.