I first met Spencer Byrd in a Chicago diner one afternoon in 2018. Sitting throughout from me, he instructed me an outrageous story about how he’d been battling town authorities for 2 years to get his 1996 Cadillac DeVille out of impound.
Byrd’s story would assist result in reforms to Chicago’s impound program and an ongoing federal class motion lawsuit in opposition to town. However regardless of combating in court docket for practically a decade, he by no means bought his Cadillac again. I realized this week that Byrd died in February, whereas that lawsuit was nonetheless pending.
I’ve usually thought-about it one thing—if not destiny, then no less than fortuitous—that Byrd and I related.
In 2017, a staffer on the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois instructed me about Chicago’s punitive automobile impound program and put me in contact with an area lawyer doing professional bono work with folks whose automobiles had been seized. The lawyer gave me the telephone numbers of 5 – 6 shoppers who he thought can be taken with speaking to me.
Byrd was the one one who responded, and the story he instructed me was a doozy: He was a carpenter and a part-time auto mechanic in Harvey, Illinois. He stated he was giving a consumer a elevate in his automobile one night in June 2016, when he was pulled over by Chicago police and searched. Byrd was clear, however his passenger, a person he says he’d by no means met earlier than, had heroin in his pocket.
The police launched Byrd with out charging him with against the law, however his automobile was seized and dually claimed by each the Cook dinner County State Legal professional’s Workplace and town of Chicago. Basically, his automobile was being claimed by two distinct layers of presidency. Even after a state choose declared Byrd harmless within the county’s asset forfeiture case in opposition to his automobile, Chicago refused to launch the automobile till Byrd paid 1000’s of {dollars} in impound fines and costs underneath town’s municipal code, which did not embrace a protection for harmless house owners.
Byrd could not afford to pay the fines, and he’d by no means be capable to with out his automobile or the carpenter instruments locked within the trunk. The automobile beforehand belonged to his late brother, and on some court docket varieties, he listed it as a household heirloom.
“I can not perceive it, as a result of I am nearly to the purpose of being homeless,” Byrd instructed me. “If I used to be discovered responsible or within the mistaken, do what you gotta do, however I used to be blind to the actual fact.”
Then on the diner, a small journalistic miracle occurred. Byrd slid over a big binder with each court docket submitting and doc in his case, even a letter from his native carpenter union vouching for him. He fairly actually dropped the story in my lap. I took footage of the entire paperwork, which allowed me to construct a two-year timeline of Byrd’s Kafkaesque battle with Cook dinner County and town of Chicago.
Due to Byrd’s folder, the story I finally wrote was probably the greatest of my profession.
Different investigations by WBEZ, and ProPublica Illinois additionally confirmed how Chicago’s huge impound program commonly ensnared harmless house owners and low-income residents, soaking them in 1000’s of {dollars} of fines and storage charges, no matter their means to pay.
In 2019, Byrd turned one of many lead plaintiffs in a civil rights lawsuit filed by the Institute for Justice, a public curiosity regulation agency, in opposition to Chicago. The go well with alleged that town’s impound scheme violated the Illinois and U.S. Structure’s protections in opposition to extreme fines and unreasonable seizures, in addition to due course of protections.
Below strain, Chicago partially reformed its automobile impound program in 2020, together with including a protection for some harmless house owners.
To not low cost the work of the numerous different plaintiffs, attorneys, and reporters who uncovered Chicago’s impound racket, however it happens to me that a part of this was all set in movement as a result of Byrd fought for 2 years earlier than I met him, with barely any assets, and refused to simply accept a farce the place Chicago might take his automobile for against the law he’d been declared harmless of by a state choose.
Generally I imagined that in the future Byrd would win his automobile again, and I would fly to Chicago to take an image of him reunited together with his beloved Cadillac. That will have been a superb story. I had skilled self-interest in that after all, however Byrd additionally was additionally, so far as I might inform, an honest man.
“I’ve no background in medication, no felonies, no nothing, simply been working onerous all my life,” Byrd instructed me on the diner. “I imagine town simply needs you to throw cash at them and never combat for what’s proper, and I am combating for what’s proper.”
In March, a federal choose dominated in favor of Chicago and dismissed the Institute for Justice’s lawsuit difficult town’s impound program. The Institute for Justice says it plans on interesting the choice.
“Chicago’s impound program has violated residents’ rights for a lot too lengthy,” Institute for Justice senior lawyer Diana Simpson stated in a press launch. “Harmless house owners mustn’t face sky-high fines and costs for others’ actions, and town mustn’t deal with its automobile house owners as a income supply. We look ahead to interesting this ruling and tackling head-on instances approving of this unconstitutional system.”
