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 ...
I have a poem on my "I love me wall" that was carried all through my career. My Dad told it to me the day I enlisted.
Peace and Grace
used to rule this place
and angels guarded the door
now peace is dead
and the angels have fled
and grace has turned into a whore.....
His way of telling me to watch my six every day......
I have an "I love me wall" also.
No poetry - just awards, pictures, plaques, that sort of thing. And a mirror - to remind myself of reality.
hymmmm. which dilemma?
Yep.....nothing left but "been there did that" and now just enjoying cool quiet evenings swatting at a dangerous skeeter er two, killing some brain cells with a cold corona and some tunes........life is good !
me=dilemma
He doesn't believe that she exists.
Been there - done that - lived to brag about it.
Enjoy your Corona.
DD
Nope. XO.
Kewl.......Small world !!........Dangerous World.
Tell him I said Congrats for surviving ! I helped to clear the US Embassy in Kuwait City and then render safe some of the beaches and local UXO in town.....went north and did a days work along hell highway amid the smell of Chanel Number 5, burning Mercedes and unlucky Iraqi looters. Worked a couple of airfields and then was offered to go home. I had been there since Aug of 90 so beat feet and went home ......had they let out our leash I'd have stayed for the entired road trip to baghdad. But we were told to heal and we sat like good doggies.
Stay safe !
Did ya fly in the service ?
Friend - not me - but still cool pix.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/dasher4/waterskiingpitts.jpg
Ruby
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/dasher4/personal/2004_ruby.jpg
Ruby Inverted
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y231/dasher4/inverted.bmp
No.
Civilian pilot, trained by USAF retired.
she's got speed pants on. LOL.
Yes, she does.
We jokingly call her "Ruby White Shoes" - her "White Shoes" are her running shoes. We're painting them to look like sneakers.
NIKE? Are you listening? We could use the sponsorship $$$!!!
PS... while she will always be Ruby in my heart...
I changed her name for the program this year.
I believe you'll probably be able to guess her new name.
????
Then he and I crossed paths......Stay Safe !!
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