Drunk & Disorderly

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

It’s hard to believe, but up until 1985 it was legal for police to shoot and kill an unarmed suspect who tried to run away. Could shoot ‘em in the back. Even if the suspect was a child.

A Tennessee statute said if an officer cried “Halt!” and the 17-year-old suspect tried to hop a fence instead, the lawman could “use all the necessary means to effect the arrest.” I suppose the law was trying to protect the health of a fat cop who couldn’t give chase without risk of a heart attack, or stubbed toe.

But the Supreme Court, in Tennessee v. Garner, 471 U.S. 1, which by then had been deciding what the police could and couldn’t do for 196 years, said it was time we stop shooting fleeing and unarmed juveniles in the back. Two Justices thought we should give the police more time to get used to the idea.

We’d come a long way since 1789. Some day we may even decide it’s just not right to shoot a suspect reaching for his wallet or cell phone, even if he or she is black, or shaded that way.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

Another terrific 5-4 Supreme Court decision, announced Monday, in Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington et al.

Strip searches for any criminal offense, however minor. Can’t wait for Justice Kennedy, who wrote for the majority, to fail to signal a turn to the right. I don’t believe he’ll be able to lift his genitals for the required inspection, however: his balls are obviously bigger than the Constitution.

Another Important 5-4 Decision (Courtesy of The New Yorker, and some rogue lawyer)

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

In virtually every state of the Union, police use only two measures to tell whether you’re carrying too much booze on your breath or in your blood. If your test comes back 0.05 to 0.079, the law presumes you really shouldn’t be driving, piles eight points on your license, but gives you another chance. If it’s 0.08 or better, the law presumes you’re drunk on your ass and you won’t be able to drive for a while.

But how can you tell when you’ve reached those levels, so you don’t make the mistake of driving yourself around town looking for cops? Rule of thumb: Unless you weigh 500 pounds, if you have more than two drinks of alcohol within half an hour of getting back in your car, you’ve likely reached one of those levels.

I prefer the old-fashioned way of telling if you’ve had too much to drink and drive. By old-fashioned, I mean real old-fashioned. By real old-fashioned, I mean 1592. The Atlantic, a magazine almost nobody reads anymore, has reprinted Thomas Nashe’s “The Eight Kindes of Drunkennes.” It’s a good read, and fiscally responsible for the magazine, because the copyright has been expired almost as long as the English pamphleteer.

Here it is, the spelling and language a little modernized, in case anyone had trouble with that Old English title:

The Eight Kinds of Drunkenness

The first is ape drunk: you leap, and sing, and holler, and dance for the heavens.

The second is lion drunk: you fling the pots about the house, call your hostess a whore, break the glass windows with your iPod, and are apt to quarrel with anyone who speaks to you.

The third is swine drunk: you feel heavy, lumpish, and sleepy, and cry for a little more drink, and a few more clothes.

The fourth is sheep drunk: you feel wise beyond belief, even though you can’t put so much as two intelligent words together.

The fifth is maudlin drunk: you weep with kindness in the midst of ale, and kiss every man, woman, and child within pucker range, saying, “By God, dude, I love you. C’mon, you don’t think so often of me as I do you. I wish to God I didn’t love you so much.” Then you put your finger to your eye, to wipe the tears.

The sixth is Martin (Luther) drunk, when you’re so drunk you feel like you have to drink yourself sober before you can move.

The seventh is goat drunk, when you’re so drunk you can’t think of anything that doesn’t have a sweet little skirt or tight pair of pants on it.

The eighth is fox drunk, crafty drunk, as many of the Dutchmen be, who will never bargain but when they are drunk.

So, which kinds of drunkenness should inspire you to call that cab?

All of them.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

In New York, where it is actually legal for two people who claim to love each other to get married, at least one elected town clerk there has decided the law is messing with her religious freedom to allow bigotry to trump her sworn oath to uphold and defend the laws of the state.

Rose Marie Belforti, town clerk of Ledyard, just doesn’t think it’s right that she should have to sign a marriage license upon which is written two names suspiciously sounding either both male or both female. Everybody knows, she says, God damns homosexuals, so why should she have to help them get married?

Plus, it’s confusing when some of the names on the certificates she’s required to sign — names like Jessie, Leslie, Jamie, and Jackie — could be either gender. Good Lord, what’s she supposed to do when Frankie and Johnnie want to get married? She could accidentally be aiding and abetting something really…dirty.

So I couldn’t agree with her more: she shouldn’t have to be forced by some secular-sounding governmental technicality to participate in this mess. No, she should definitely seek holier work elsewhere that doesn’t profane the word of God. Let someone else do the obvious work of the Devil.

I’m guessing the upcoming November election may prove it is God’s will to let her off the hook.

Either way, she could spend much more time in church, perhaps signing the visas God needs to legally send all those damned homosexuals to hell.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

Nature magazine has published a study of rats showing that when deprived of sleep, as many as half the tiny little neurons in their tiny little heads shut down for brief periods of time while the rats are still awake and going about their business.

Sort of makes you wonder whether some prosecutors ever get any sleep at all.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

Last time here I wrote about a couple of stupid laws in Florida. Turns out there are even more stupid laws in Texas, which is a shame because my mother was a Texan. If I really put my mind to it, I could probably do nothing but write about stupid laws in all the 50 states and all the countries of the world. I could call the blog “Stupid Laws in All the 50 States and All the Countries of the World.”

These Texas laws are particularly stupid because they are directed at schoolchildren, some of them really, really young schoolchildren. According to The Daily, a newspaper you can only read on the iPad and so I won’t link it here, Texas police have issued hundreds of thousands of criminal citations to kids as young as 6, for such awful things as talking in class, jumping up and down on your seat on the school bus, and launching paper airplanes to sail over the heads of teachers writing on the blackboard. These aren’t mere disciplinary actions, either, like getting a certificate for “Caught Being Bad.” These are real tickets that create a criminal record. For 6-year-olds.

One kid — let’s call him Billy — was cited for the criminal violation of…wait for it…farting in class.

C’mon, Texas.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

If nothing else, the Florida State Legislature concentrates on the really important work of groundbreaking criminal law.

This week that great body sent two bills for Gov. Rick Scott’s scrawl. The first would insure that anybody who gets too friendly with a sweet-eyed heifer will get to contemplate the meaning of animal magnetism from behind Sunshine State bars. Scott reportedly is reluctant to sign for fear of losing the farm vote.

The second bill gives real teeth to the fashion police. It will force school kids to wear their pants higher than they have since at least 1972. Anybody caught with their pants down far enough to show their underwear or, God forbid, buttocks cleavage, could face suspension from school, or other dire consequences. It’s a setback for Calvin Klein.

Word is the legislators have their eye on construction workers next.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

President Obama has now posted his “long form” birth certificate on the internet, and for that Donald Trump is very proud of himself. We know Trump is very proud of himself, because this wannabe cartoon candidate held a press conference to announce he is very proud of himself. I look at his baby-fat cheeks and wonder what compels this grown man to say that about himself. Did Mommy Trump or Daddy Trump never hold those cheeks and croon to Baby Trump, “Donald, I’m very proud of you!”?

Turns out the long-form certificate is one page. My birth certificate is a page, and my son’s birth certificate is a page, even though it’s written in French because he was born in Paris (mama and papa were born in the USA, so he still gets to be President), so that sounds okay. But I’m guessing someone is going to find that a little fishy. I never got to write a long-form essay that was only a page, so what’s up with that?

I’m sure the fact that this is the first President who has been asked to prove he’s an American, and the first to be more than a little black, is just a coincidence. But I admit I’ve already forbidden my daughter, who in twenty years is eligible, to run for President. I wouldn’t want anyone thinking there’s a lesbian in the family.

I hate to admit this, but I too don’t think Mr. Obama is eligible to be President. I don’t think Mr. Trump is, either. I don’t think anyone is.

Article 2, Section 1, Paragraph 5 of the United States Constitution has this to say about who’s eligible for that office:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President…”

Now I’m an old English major, and can follow a comma as well as the next old English major, and I read that to say that only a person who had been born in the United States, or who had already become a naturalized citizen under qualifying law of the day, on or before 17 September 1787, is eligible to become President.

Under that reading, the last President eligible for the office was Zachary Taylor, and the two Presidents before him (Tyler and Polk) were mere pretenders.

I wonder if Donald Trump is aware of that.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

Arizona’s Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, always pretty in pink, has discovered yet another fresh take on how best to trash basic human dignity. Now the people he arrests get to appear on a kind of American Idol contest, with their booking mugshots displayed on Arpaio’s website. People get to vote on the ugliest, most ridiculous, or stupid-looking portrait of the day. At the time I looked at the website, 5290 people had cast their votes for seven contenders, including a man who is missing his lower jaw (2nd place) and an apparently naked man who appeared to have fallen into a mountain of cocaine (runaway favorite).

Sheriff Joe is trying the idea out, and asking people if they think it’s a good idea. By about 10-1, more than 26,000 Jerry Springer fans have indicated it’s an excellent idea. Presumably none of them thinks he or she has a chance in hell of ever appearing in this gallery. Presumably none of them has ever been in Maricopa County.

Just to take the sting out of the competition, there’s a cautionary on the site advising “Pre-trial inmates are innocent until proven guilty!”

Innocent, maybe, but captive targets.

I’m just a plainspoken Colorado criminal defense lawyer, but the way I see it…

Give it up for the Italians, they just have more interesting political trials than we do.

I can’t tell you how many times I almost fell asleep during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial for not semantically properly having sex with a big-haired intern. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, on the other hand, knows how to party.

The Roman press is awash in tales of the Italian Stallion hosting “bunga bunga” sex parties, not with one or two ambitious interns, but with dozens — dozens — of women, all of whom seem to be awarded cash prizes just for attending. I’m not sure what “bunga bunga” sex is, but it may explain why he never returns my calls.

Lest you think the Italian authorities are mere moralizing adulterers, like the geezers in the United States Congress, Berlusconi is accused of handing out one of the cash prizes to a 17-year-old. Under Italian law she just misses the safe zone of legal prostitution. Berlusconi isn’t one to hide behind Clintonian language precision, though while he isn’t denying he actually did have sexual relations with that girl, he does think that technically he may be entitled to a refund.