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Lawsuit asserts right to get drunk on private property
Boston Globe ^
| July 8, 2005
| By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff |
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 ...
TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: drunkrights; unofficialsilliness
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To: patton
LOL!!!
Sounds more plausible.
121
posted on
07/08/2005 1:31:40 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: Dashing Dasher; Modernman
giving him the phone number of one of our cute female guests. Trading a woman for a free pass on a ticket - what a nice man you are.
You don't remember? How do you think my handcuffs ended up at your house? (And I still want them back!)
To: patton; Jersey Republican Biker Chick
ASK ME!!!
NOT HER!!!
;-)
DD
123
posted on
07/08/2005 1:32:41 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: Larry Lucido
124
posted on
07/08/2005 1:33:12 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: Dashing Dasher
125
posted on
07/08/2005 1:35:03 PM PDT
by
patton
("Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.")
To: patton; Jersey Republican Biker Chick
"I saw, I conquered, I came."
I'm thinking....
"we saw, we acquiesced, we came."
"we saw, we consented, we came."
"we saw, we advanced, we came."
thinking...
126
posted on
07/08/2005 1:38:54 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: patton
127
posted on
07/08/2005 1:39:19 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: Dashing Dasher
128
posted on
07/08/2005 1:39:29 PM PDT
by
Jersey Republican Biker Chick
(People too weak to follow their own dreams, will always find a way to discourage yours.)
To: Jersey Republican Biker Chick
129
posted on
07/08/2005 1:41:21 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: Dashing Dasher
130
posted on
07/08/2005 1:41:42 PM PDT
by
patton
("Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.")
To: Dashing Dasher
Wow. There is an immelman in there, somewhere.
131
posted on
07/08/2005 1:43:08 PM PDT
by
patton
("Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.")
To: patton
FYI....
Giggling isn't macho.
;-)
132
posted on
07/08/2005 1:43:25 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: patton
Only if you do it right.
If you don't, it's an Immel-Spin.
133
posted on
07/08/2005 1:44:52 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: Dashing Dasher
yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
134
posted on
07/08/2005 1:45:12 PM PDT
by
Jersey Republican Biker Chick
(People too weak to follow their own dreams, will always find a way to discourage yours.)
To: Dashing Dasher
That ain't giggling, a'la mutley - it is a sardonic laugh, a'la vladimir dracul.
135
posted on
07/08/2005 1:46:19 PM PDT
by
patton
("Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.")
To: patton
The Flaming Mouse visual is hilarious.
Please tell me you guys stomped them dead before they did any damage.
136
posted on
07/08/2005 1:46:22 PM PDT
by
Feiny
(I put the purrr in freeper, baby)
To: Jersey Republican Biker Chick
137
posted on
07/08/2005 1:48:51 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: Dashing Dasher
What an interesting notion. Max would be proud.
Thank heavens, he is dead. LOL. No competetion there.
138
posted on
07/08/2005 1:49:03 PM PDT
by
patton
("Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.")
To: feinswinesuksass; patton
Oh... geezz... not that flaming dead mice story again.
139
posted on
07/08/2005 1:49:28 PM PDT
by
Dashing Dasher
(I am, therefore I drink/think? Is it Friday yet?)
To: Dashing Dasher
140
posted on
07/08/2005 1:49:36 PM PDT
by
Jersey Republican Biker Chick
(People too weak to follow their own dreams, will always find a way to discourage yours.)
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