Posted on 08/30/2007 6:37:17 PM PDT by Stoat
Please elaborate.
When Craig is a sitting Senator, he’s not a stand-up guy.
You do realize it was more than "bumping a foot," right?
I have no doubt that if the officer's testimony is correct, he was soliciting sex. The problem is, does making interactive, non-obscene overtures for soliciting sex fit the definition of "disorderly conduct" if one doesn't actually engage in the act?
609.72 DISORDERLY CONDUCT Subdivision 1. Crime.Do the gestures he made tend reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others?
Whoever does any of the following in a public or private place, including on a school bus, knowing, or having reasonable grounds to know that it will, or will tend to, alarm, anger or disturb others or provoke an assault or breach of the peace, is guilty of disorderly conduct, which is a misdemeanor:
[...]
(3) Engages in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct or in offensive, obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others.
A person does not violate this section if the person's disorderly conduct was caused by an epileptic seizure.
And what was the intent of Senator Craig's peeping? Was his intent to intrude upon or interfere with the privacy of the officer--or was he merely checking him out(facially, for example)? If it wasn't to try to check out intimate parts, then I think that perhaps one could argue that the state "peeping" statute doesn't truly apply.
609.746 INTERFERENCE WITH PRIVACY. Subdivision 1. Surreptitious intrusion; observation device.The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that police surveillance cameras in camera stalls violated privacy only if there were doors on the stalls...and a Court of Appeals ruling said that urinals didn't need doors because partitions provide privacy based on the way urinals are used. Further, "...a reasonable person when using a public restroom has an expectation of privacy in that place shielded from public view by partitions and his body..." so it seems to me that the whole body would be considered protected as long as there's a door, based on the court ruling if not the actual wording of the statute, unless, of course, we get into whether they meant "partition" to include the stall walls or just the urinal partitions they were speaking of in that case...
[...]
(c) A person is guilty of a gross misdemeanor who: (1) surreptitiously gazes, stares, or peeps in the window or other aperture of a sleeping room in a hotel, as defined in section 327.70, subdivision 3, a tanning booth, or other place where a reasonable person would have an expectation of privacy and has exposed or is likely to expose their intimate parts, as defined in section 609.341, subdivision 5, or the clothing covering the immediate area of the intimate parts; and (2) does so with intent to intrude upon or interfere with the privacy of the occupant.
One thing that this illustrates is that it appears it would be legal for police to videotape the officer's side of the stall (from a camera placed on the inside of his stall door so it would not be visible from the outside.) There would be no disputing what "really" happened, then. Right?
But these are just my own musings and I am not a lawyer. And for that, I am grateful. :-)
If all the cops are rogue, you have a choice in the US. You say, in order to protect my family, we will leave this third world county. Or, you decide you kneel before thugs, and you teach your children to kneel before thugs. When an adult woman says cops intimidate her easily, and could coerce her into doing things she would not normally do or want to do, then she has been taught how to be a victim.
A man who teaches his children to be victims is a coward.
Well, the allegation he saw the Senators left hand with wedding ring coming under the right side of the senator’s stall while the senators shoe was right there. That would be pretty hard to do and doesn’t make sense.
Plus he talks about the senator looking thru the crack in the door, he could see his eyes. That tells me the cop was peeping out the crack. Awfully odd and suggestive. I mean,,people standing waiting for stalls generally stare into space or look for someone leaving a stall. I myself look under seeing if anyone is in a stall. Sometimes the doors aren’t open and you have to.
But neither action,,a shoe hitting a shoe, a hand at the bottom of a stall, eye contact thru the crack ,,none are crimes.
A shoe bump and seeing a hand pick up paper off the floor is grounds for assuming someone is soliciting. Puhleese!
My oh My. He did something that he knew or should have known would cause alarm or resentment.
My God, I do that daily. That is the lamest damn plea I ever saw. Not only that if he didn’t know, he should have known.
Insane.
“If all the cops are rogue, you have a choice in the US. You say, in order to protect my family, we will leave this third world county. Or, you decide you kneel before thugs, and you teach your children to kneel before thugs. When an adult woman says cops intimidate her easily, and could coerce her into doing things she would not normally do or want to do, then she has been taught how to be a victim.
“A man who teaches his children to be victims is a coward.”
I didn’t say all cops are rogue or imply this is a third world country. You’re not being taught to “be a victim” when advised to cooperate with police during a pull-over. That’s absurd. Your insulting idealism reeks of megalomania.
If you advise your sons or daughters to smart off or disobey a cop (OR an armed criminal, in most cases) you’re a fool. Check out some of the Darwin awards for examples of those who live(d) by your high principle...
Except he agreed to lesser charges of disorderly conduct...PLUS, in the audio of the interview, Craig said he was picking up a piece of toilet paper, not just a piece of paper. I don't know about you, but most people I know don't go around picking up TP on the floor of public restrooms.
Everyone can dance around this rediculous event all day long, but the bottom line is his constituents are furious with him, (myself included) and we don't expect our congress critters to be implicated in such a disgusting behavior.
I ain't buying the cop made it up.
Well pardon me but when a man drops his trousers to sit {I assume he does drop them}, and then looks down and sees a piece of paper, they did not say toilet paper, might he think “Oh my, what fell out of my pocket”.
And as to disgusting,,disgusting is in the eye of the beholder. He brushes his sshoe against anothers,,or at least the cop says that. he says he doesn’t know whose shoe hit the others. He picks up paper.
No words, no solicitation, no vulgar noises, nothing.
Frankly this thread has alot more disgusting things on it than this.
I don’t know about the cop making it up. But there he was in his stall looking for a perv and he interprets actions as a come on because he is looking for it. That is a whole lot more likely. Sort of like witchhunting used to be.
Well, Larry the “innocent” resigns from Senate Sept. 1, 2007.
Of course. I didn't notice this detail. Clearly these are the words of a criminal.
Except he agreed to lesser charges of disorderly conduct...
I didn't know this, either. I'm even more convinced that he's being railroaded now, knowing what I know about being persuaded to plead to lesser charges "or we can't really say what will happen to you..."
The cops will not admit an error. Coercing someone to plead is standard operating procedure. It's also a one of the ways the state makes money.
I wish it weren't so, I wish things didn't work that way, but they do. Pleading to a lesser charge is not an admission of guilt.
Who doesn’t?
We only get one sheet now don't we??? Go Green!
A couple of things we do know, being indicted and having $90k cold cash in your freezer is worse than toe tapping. Leaving a woman to die in your Oldsmobile while you run home to sleep off the bender is worse than toe tapping.
And now we know how valuable toilet paper is with the new rationing scheme.
It is about deterring public sex.
It might just have been about a cop not wanting to let a big fish go.
It's a longshot, but it might even be about a setup.
Who's come out to testify about the character of the cop, or the force?
The police were and are responding to ongoing problems in the airport restrooms. This type of profiling is SOP. You can't possibly expect the police to.....let things go further before they make the bust?
The guilty plea, resignation, questionable past and the lame lies speak volumes.
There's a Latin term for this logical gambit, but I doubt they use it much in West Virginia...
It's not about what i would do. I wasn't there. I have no idea what went on in the aftermath, but I do know that pleas are often proposed for reasons that have nothing whatsoever to do with guilt, but everything to do with other factors; for example, the odds, as perceived by the accused, of being believed by a jury.
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