Posted on 07/08/2005 10:18:07 AM PDT by Dashing Dasher
Eric Laverriere was celebrating last New Year's Eve at a friend's house in Waltham when police broke up the party. They took him into protective custody and kept him locked in a cell for nine hours until the effects of a night of beer drinking wore off.
In what legal experts believe to be a first-of-its-kind legal challenge, Laverriere filed suit against the Waltham Police Department in US District Court in Boston, contending that he has a constitutional right to get drunk on private property ''so long as he causes no public disturbance."
Laverriere, a 25-year-old computer systems specialist from Portland, Maine, argues that the Massachusetts Protective Custody Law is intended to target public drunkenness and that Waltham police overstepped their bounds when they used it to seize him from a private residence.
''One thing people should be able to do is drink in their own house," Laverriere said in a phone interview yesterday. ''That's the beauty of the land of the free."
The state's Protective Custody Law, enacted in 1971, replaced a law dating back to Colonial times that made public drunkenness a crime, subject to arrest, conviction, and a criminal record. The law, which does not explicitly say whether it applies to those in public or in private, authorizes police to take incapacitated people to their homes, a treatment facility, or a police station, where they can be held against their will for up to 12 hours.
Under the law, people have to be drunk and deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. They are not charged with a crime.
Laverriere asserts in his lawsuit that he had ''a constitutional right to be drunk in private, a privacy and liberty right founded in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution."
{SNIP}
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Only if you think "I came, I saw, I conquered" can be re-arranged in a dirty way. ;-)
SD
ME TOO!!!
Gives a visual to the "left vs. right" argument.
;-)
Dasher!
(ps.... glad you swung by!)
That' a little tame, you can flirt with dasher with better than that!!
WHY WAS THIS NOT POSTED TO ME!!! I LOVE A GOD PICTURE!!!
How did you know I love him!!
GOD Picture?
I'll send you the link to the LARGER one too.
Well, I am all over the Drunk threads....so the title got me right away.
Ditto.
I love his stuff - Everything - from the Van to the Tater Salad.
Good stuff!
I can find dirt anywhere.
?Like a hoover?
Are you not on my PING LIST?
That must change!
;-)
I think the guy is taking the wrong approach. There isn't a constitutional right to get drunk on private property. Before and after Prohibition, states could and did ban the sale of alcohol and, I believe, consumption of alcohol in some places, especially on a county level.
So the 9th basically is a prohibition against federal action - but not state action. There is no Constitutional right here, just a Constitutional prohibition against the feds taking action (or there used to be, but that's another story entirely).
The guy would need to examine the Mass Constitution to see if there are state prohibitions against law enforcement holding someone for engaging in a legal activity on private property - or if there are certain provisions that make it a state right to be left alone on private property if no crime is being committed.
So I expect this guy to lose with this argument, even though I disagree with the legality of the action - he chose the wrong defense.
Well, I figured you love Ron White after reading your posts on other threads. He is my favorite Blue Collar Comedy guy.
"I was drunk in a bar....these guys threw me into public....arrest them".
It was supposed to be GOOD, but they made me scream OH GOD!!
I would be honored to be on your PING list.
I can, but should I?
Wasn't the first or last time for that, eh?
Ask her, I am sure she will like it.
He rearranged it, "I saw, I conquered, I came."
You got that right!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.