Post by High Priestess on Dec 28, 2016 14:56:08 GMT
Two Jackson residents have filed suit against their city over harsh STR laws:
www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/town_county/short-term-rental-law-challenged-in-court/article_36d98907-9fed-5eb5-baef-b634e6110e4e.html
www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/town_county/short-term-rental-law-challenged-in-court/article_36d98907-9fed-5eb5-baef-b634e6110e4e.html
No sooner did the town of Jackson began to prosecute illegal short-term rentals than two of the defendants, Nancy Lee and Charles Schmidt, challenged the constitutionality of key aspects of the ordinance.
Subsection A of the ordinance states that “advertising that offers a property as a residential short-term rental shall constitute prima facie evidence of the operation of a residential short-term rental and the burden of proof shall be on the owner, operator or lessee of record to establish that the subject property is being used as a legal residential short-term rental or is not in operation.”
Nate Rectanus of the Lubing Law Group argued during a Thursday hearing in the federal courthouse that the section is unconstitutional. Advertising a short-term rental, he said, does not constitute a crime, especially considering that a unit can legally be rented on a short-term basis as long as the unit is not occupied for the remainder of that month.
Shifting the burden of proof from the town to the defendant, Lee and Schmidt’s lawyers argue, forces the defendants to violate their Fifth Amendment right to silence in order to prove their innocence.
“The town must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that citizens are actually renting short term,” a brief written by the defendants’ lawyers reads, “and cannot rely on a burden shifting provision whereby citizens are presumed innocent of misdemeanor crimes based on legal conduct.”
The law, they wrote, denies due process rights guaranteed by the Wyoming and U.S. Constitution.
Subsection A of the ordinance states that “advertising that offers a property as a residential short-term rental shall constitute prima facie evidence of the operation of a residential short-term rental and the burden of proof shall be on the owner, operator or lessee of record to establish that the subject property is being used as a legal residential short-term rental or is not in operation.”
Nate Rectanus of the Lubing Law Group argued during a Thursday hearing in the federal courthouse that the section is unconstitutional. Advertising a short-term rental, he said, does not constitute a crime, especially considering that a unit can legally be rented on a short-term basis as long as the unit is not occupied for the remainder of that month.
Shifting the burden of proof from the town to the defendant, Lee and Schmidt’s lawyers argue, forces the defendants to violate their Fifth Amendment right to silence in order to prove their innocence.
“The town must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that citizens are actually renting short term,” a brief written by the defendants’ lawyers reads, “and cannot rely on a burden shifting provision whereby citizens are presumed innocent of misdemeanor crimes based on legal conduct.”
The law, they wrote, denies due process rights guaranteed by the Wyoming and U.S. Constitution.