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A camera hovers over Euclid Avenue at East 9th St. in downtown Cleveland in this picture from 2011. The Ohio Supreme Court has been asked to hear another challenge to a municipal traffic camera law, and the Ohio Senate is expected this fall to take up a bill that would abolish most traffic cameras.

(Thomas Ondrey/The Plain Dealer)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Another dispute over traffic cameras has

even as the Ohio Senate is scheduled to take up the thorny issue when it reconvenes later this month.

The high court’s ruling, if it decides to accept the case, and the

, if it becomes law, would affect Cleveland and other cities in Northeast Ohio and across the state.

Proponents of the cameras say they improve safety and provide round-the-clock enforcement of traffic laws while freeing officers to do other police work. Detractors say they violate legal rights and are unfair money-pots for municipalities.

The case that reached the Ohio Supreme Court in August involves

a speeding ticket he got in Toledo in 2011. Bradley Walker paid the $120 fine, then filed a complaint in Lucas County Common Pleas Court.

The lawsuit didn’t challenge the validity of traffic cameras. Instead, Walker contended Toledo’s program is illegal because violations are handled administratively (by a hearing officer in the police department), stripping the Toledo Municipal Court of its jurisdiction over city law.

Walker, citing the doctrine of unjust enrichment, said Toledo and camera operator Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. should give drivers back any traffic camera fines they paid.

The common pleas court dismissed Walker’s complaint, and the

the lower court’s ruling. The Sixth District said Toledo was depriving Walker and other drivers of due process and equal protection under the Ohio and U.S. constitutions.

“Since at a minimum, due process of law requires notice and a meaningful opportunity to be heard, it would seem the absence of any process would be problematic,” the appellate decision stated.

Toledo’s appeal to the Ohio Supreme Court said the Sixth District had eliminated the ability of a home-rule city to set how it would review non-criminal cases. If not reversed, Toledo said, the ruling would affect traffic camera ordinances across Ohio.

Andrew Mayle, an attorney for Walker, the driver nabbed in Toledo, said he would file an opposition brief next week.

“The central activity that’s occurring is a municipality usurping a court’s jurisdiction,” Mayle said Friday. “It’s unconstitutional.”

The Ohio Supreme Court in 2011 dismissed a similar lawsuit on a technicality, saying it was improperly filed directly to the high court, Mayle said. That lawsuit sought to force Cleveland to refund millions of dollars to drivers caught speeding or running red lights by city traffic cameras. The suit alleged Cleveland violated state law by assigning a hearing officer from the Parking Violations Bureau to handle the citations, instead of sending them to Cleveland Municipal Court.

Meanwhile, legislation that would bar communities from using traffic cameras to enforce laws against red-light and speed-limit violators has passed the House, and is expected to be taken up by the Senate when it reconvenes next week.

One of the sponsors of the bill, Greater Cincinnati state Rep. Dale Mallory, a Democrat, said he would like to see all outstanding traffic camera citations erased and the programs abolished.

“Everything’s just so out of whack that it needs to be reined in,” he said.