BOSTON – The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Thursday handed down a ruling affirming the validity of Northampton's appeal system for parking tickets despite a Greenfield man's contention that the cost of the appeal effectively negated his constitutional rights.

Vincent Gillespie said the $319.90 cost of appealing his July 19, 2005, parking ticket in Hampshire Superior Court far exceeded the $15 fine. Gillespie, a former Easthampton resident, received two citations that day for parking in a prohibited zone in Northampton, the second as he was walking to the parking office to contest the first. He subsequently filed a written challenge that was denied, although the second citation was dismissed as duplicative of the first.

Because Northampton’s system did not include the option of appearing before a hearing officer, as it does now, Gillespie filed for summary judgment in Hampshire Superior Court, saying he was denied his rights. Judge Bertha D. Josephson found in his favor, but ruled in the city’s favor on Gillespie’s Constitutional argument that the fee system effectively denied him access to the courts.

Edward Hamel, who was issued a $100 citation for parking in a handicapped space in 2005, joined Gillespie as a plaintiff in the case, which was argued before the Supreme Judicial Court by American Civil Liberties lawyer William C. Newman of Northampton. The city did not have a lawyer at the hearing, with the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office representing its position instead.

Although the court did not address matters such as the high amount of the filing fees, it ruled in favor of Northampton, saying that the plaintiffs did not meet their burden of proving that the laws establishing the appeal process for traffic tickets were not in keeping with the state constitution. Furthermore, the court wrote, the fee system serves the purpose of discouraging “the filing of nonmeritorious appeals” by conserving scarce judicial resources.

Newman argued, however, that those same resources could be further conserved by hearing parking ticket appeals in small claims court or district court. He also noted, as did the court in its ruling, that the cost of appeal of tickets in Massachusetts far exceeds that in other states such as California ($25) and Connecticut ($35).

“The Massachusetts system is an aberration,” Newman said Thursday.

The court said it is up to the Legislature to set those costs.

“Our lens focuses only on the constitutional question,” the justices wrote.

Mayor Mary Clare Higgins said Thursday that the legal battle was more a matter of state concern, but concurred with the court's opinion.

“I think the ruling was correct,” she said.