New ways to break the law! (are you a criminal? Probably)

http://www.theadvocates.org ^ | Bill Winter

[freepatriot32]

Here's a question for you: Can you get through 24 hours without breaking a law? Before you answer, consider:

In January, an Atlanta man was arrested and handcuffed for selling a subway token at face value. Donald Pirone observed another passenger having difficulty with a token vending machine, so he gave him a $1.75 token. After the man insisted on paying him, Pirone was cited by a transit officer for a misdemeanor, since state law prohibits selling tokens -- even at face value. A MARTA spokesperson denied that handcuffing a customer for helping another customer was excessive. "There are customer service phones for people who are having trouble getting tokens out of the machine," she said.

Meanwhile, in late 2005, an Ohio man spent three days in jail because he didn't put identification tags on his family's pet turtles and snakes. Terry Wilkins broke a state law requiring owners of native reptiles to tag them with a PIT (personal-integrated transponder). The tags, which are the size of a grain of rice and can be inserted under the animal's skin, contain a bar code readable by a scanner. Wilkins refused to tag the animals because he said PIT tags cause health problems in small reptiles.

It goes on. In Kentucky, Larry Casteel was arrested for not attending a parenting class for divorcing parents, as mandated by state law. He spent the night in jail. In New Jersey, police are giving tickets to people who leave their cars running for more than three minutes in store parking lots. Stopwatch-wielding police hit the offenders with a $200 fine for violating the state's anti-idling law. In northwest Georgia, 49 convenience store owners were arrested for selling legal products to customers. The owners -- mostly of Indian background -- sold cold medicine, baking soda, table salt, matches, and lantern fuel. Police said the ingredients could be used to make methamphetamine. In Burlington, Vermont, police are ticketing people for not removing keys from the ignition and locking their cars. Police said the state law prevents car thefts. Violators are fined $79.

So -- are you still sure you can get through a day without violating a law? If so, don't worry. Legislators are making more things illegal. In New York City, a city council member wants to make it a crime to ride a bike without a registration number tag. Violators would face up to 15 days imprisonment. In Illinois, a state senator wants to make it a crime not to have a carbon monoxide detector installed in your home. In Pennsylvania, a state senator filed a bill to allow police to fine drivers $75 if they don't clean snow off their car. In Virginia, a state legislator wants to make it illegal to show your underwear in public. Girls (or boys) with low-rider pants would get hit with a $50 fine if their thongs show.

Novelist Ayn Rand once wrote: "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws."

Have we reached that point? Is it impossible to live without breaking laws? Before you answer, better check to make sure that your pets have transponder tags, that you didn't leave the keys in your car, and that your underwear is not showing.

Sources:

MARTA token: http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=1390140 Pet TIPs: http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/13309603.htm Parenting class: http://www.reason.com/brickbats/bb-2005.shtml NJ anti-idling law: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060108/LIVING/601080331/1004/LIVING&theme=

VT locked cars: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060108/LIVING/601080331/1004/LIVING&theme= Convenience store: http://www.iacfpa.org/p_news/nit/iacpa-archieve/2005/08/19/civil2-19082995.html NY bikes: http://ridl.us/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=4889&sid=7bad222acdd8dc2f133555e0e62b5f34 CO2 detector: http://www.pioneerlocal.com/cgi-bin/ppo-story/localnews/current/ba/01-19-06-807026.html PA snow: http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/08/874.asp VA underwear: http://www.timesdispatch.com/

[Horatio Gates]

ROFL! Had to back track that image to get the full story

[Gordongekko909]

A lot of those are urban legends, and the ones that actually are "on the books" have either been interpreted out of existence, or the stories about them being enforced have a bit more to the story than what you might be told.

I live in New Orleans, and there is allegedly a law making it very difficult to open up a sorority house because of the way "brothels" are defined. This is pure BS; brothels are illegal because of what goes on in them, not because of who lives there. But that doesn't stop me from having to debunk it every few months.

[Gordongekko909]

Yep. Juries don't get to decide questions of law. They get to decide questions of fact. And they may determine that the accused did not commit the crime with which he is charged.

[Live and let live conservative]

Ayn Rand = idiot

Brilliant rebuttal.

[darkangel82]

Oh, but you need all these laws, because people are too stupid/immoral/base to look after themselves. It is unfair for stupidity to be painful anyway - idiots need to be protected from hurting themselves. Personal responsibility and liberty are overrated anyway.

You just summed up the beliefs of the entire left.

[birbear]

What we need to do is have a sunset clause on every law -- even laws against murder -- that requires them to be reviewed and renewed every seven years, or else they are no longer law. Amend the Constitution to do that.

While that sounds like an interesting idea on the outset, do you realize how many more lawyers (and lobbiests) that would employ to keep check of which laws need to be renewed? That would create a whole new division of gov't to keep tabs to make sure the "good laws" are kept renewed. The last thing we need is another gov't division.

[ClaireSolt]

I just cring when I hear commentators say that the authorities are building their case against someone. They choose a suspect, based on their assumptions, and then they build a case. Scary. If they want to, they will get you on something. Meanwhile, the public assumes that where there is smoke, there must be fire.

[DuncanWaring]

Juries don't get to decide questions of law.

So if you were a juror for someone accused of violating the Fugitive Slave Law, if they were proven guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt", you'd vote "Guilty".

[Richard Kimball]

The Texas Legislature only meets every other year, a system set up in the Texas Constitution. The reasoning behind this system was that the purpose of the Constitution was to protect life, freedom, and property, and that no man's life, freedom or property was safe while a legislature was in session.

[DManA]

I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a law is born.

[Richard Kimball]

While a juror might decide on his own that he would vote not guilty because he did not agree with the law, that does not mean the jury has the legal right to challenge the validity of the law. For an example, see the OJ verdict. One alternate juror, when interviewed and asked if they acquitted based on the fact that OJ was black and the victims were white, said, "So what if we did?" A juror in the Michael Jackson trial stated that one of the reasons she voted to acquit was because she didn't like the mother's attitude when she was on the stand. So, jurors frequently decide based on issues other than what they are supposed to, that doesn't make it legal, according to the law.

[B4Ranch]

I would love to have that happen to me. I would argue for jury nullification from the moment that we stepped into the conference room just to blast that judge back into reality.

[freepatriot32]

Last time I was in a jury selection pool, the Judge made a point of telling us he would NOT tolerate a jury deciding on the validity of any law in HIS court. We were to stick with determining guilt or innocence. Or else.

You should have called him on it there is absolutley nothing he can do to the jurors if they found someone not guilty even if it is clear he was guilty.

[supercat]

Most states have a law that says it is illegal to open you car door into oncoming traffic,meaning,if you go to the store and park on the street,getting out on the driver side you are breaking the law.

In downtown Fort Atkinson, WI there are explicit signs warning "Unlawful to open door into traffic", but that doesn't mean that it's unlawful to disembark via the driver's side door; it means that one must wait until there are no moving vehicles in the rightmost traffic lane before doing so (either because there are no vehicles at all there, or because they have stopped at a traffic signal).

[DoNotDivide]

I guarantee you I am a 'criminal' according to the "right is wrong" and "up is down" Society of Nitwits known as Constitutional Sellouts and Assorted Traitors.

[null and void]

I chose my battles carefully. That was one I couldn't possibly win head-to-head.

Had I been selected, and had the law been manifestly unfair, I probably would have gone with B4Ranch's plan.

The thought of spending the rest of my life in county jail a few months at a time for contempt of court does have a somewhat chilling effect.

Citizen vs. Judge is an ultimate example of asymmetric warfare...

[supercat]

I would love to have that happen to me. I would argue for jury nullification from the moment that we stepped into the conference room just to blast that judge back into reality.

Judges have basically unlimited power to throw people in jail for contempt. So I wouldn't recommend doing such a thing. Better would be to keep your toughts mostly to yourself, but if you felt you had to acquit someone against the judge's instruction, say you refused to convict because something "didn't smell right".

[null and void]

You should have called him on it there is absolutely nothing he can do to the jurors if they found someone not guilty even if it is clear he was guilty.

That is an entirely different issue.

Much more acceptable to the court that a guilty man be set free, they do that all the time on minor technicalities.

But threaten one of their precious Laws...

[null and void]

In downtown Fort Atkinson, WI there are explicit signs warning "Unlawful to open door into traffic", but that doesn't mean that it's unlawful to disembark via the driver's side door; it means that one must wait until there are no moving vehicles in the rightmost traffic lane before doing so (either because there are no vehicles at all there, or because they have stopped at a traffic signal).

Cops must love this one. They can hassle pretty much anyone they want, based on their judgment that the traffic was too close to the suspect. Half a block away, a block away, a mile away, etc.

Based on some of the idjits I've been stuck behind waiting for traffic to clear so they can turn, any visible or imagined traffic would suffice.

[EGPWS]

There are way too many laws already.

When Ludifisk is outlawed ALL Ludifisk eaters will be outlaws...

Watch your diet FRiends. ; )