Gangsters in Blue

Various jurisdictions in Texas have made news over the last several years for sending vice squads into bars and arresting patrons for drinking. Not drinking and driving, mind you. Just drinking. In a bar.

In a scary piece for Mother Jones, Adam Weinstein delves into just how ridiculously broad and vague the state’s public intoxication laws really are. Exceprt:

The public intoxication standard, backed by the Texas-based Mothers Against Drunk Driving, is so broad that you can be arrested on just a police officer’s hunch, without being given a Breathalyzer or field sobriety test. State courts have not only upheld the practice but expanded the definition of public intoxication to cover pretty much any situation, says Robert Guest, a criminal defense attorney in Dallas. “Having no standard allows the police to arrest whoever pisses them off and call it PI,” he says, adding, “If you have a violent, homophobic, or just an asshole of a cop and you give him the arbitrary power to arrest anyone for PI, you can expect violent, homophobic, and asshole-ic behavior.”

For some officers, PI has provided a ready-made reason for detaining minorities. A Houston defense attorney, who asks to be unnamed since he specializes in misdemeanors such as PI, puts it this way: “If you’re brown and you’re around—you’re going down.” Nick Novello, a 27-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, blew the whistle on three colleagues who he claims filled their arrest quotas by picking up people, mostly minorities, for PI. “They were illegally arrested,” Novello says. “It’s an absolute perversion.” (Two were removed from the force.)

According to a recent report by sociology and law professors at the University of California-Berkeley, the Dallas suburb of Irving has used “discretionary” public intoxication arrests to fish for undocumented immigrants.

• They ordered 14 condoms for every athlete in the Olympic Village . . . and they’re running out! Who has time to train?
• Mall Sharks sounds like a pretty awesome camp horror movie.
• Puppet decolletage: too hot for Colorado Springs.
• Sheriff who intimidated college professor apologizes.
• More from Barack Obama’s Facebook page.
• Speaking of Facebook, guards investigated for boasting on the site about beating prisoners.
• UK introduces vague law that could land you in prison for 10 years for photographing a cop.
• J.D.’s looking great post-surgery.

• Via the comments, a sheriff says of a dog shooting: “I want to stress that this dog was inside of a fenced-in yard when it was shot and killed. Anyone who would do something like this is cruel, cold-hearted and a coward to boot.” Wish police officials were as blunt when cops fire at leashed or fenced-in dogs.
• Tobias Funke would be proud.
• The Washington Post profiles libertarian Tom Palmer, who’s suing for the right to open carry in Washington, D.C. Palmer says a gun saved his life in the early 1980s when he was able to fend off a couple of homophobes intent on killing him.
• There’s a headline writer at Stars and Stripes with a bawdy sense of humor.
• The ever-reaching scope of the Plain View Doctrine.
• DEA raids another medical marijuana dispensary.
• …which of course would mean it isn’t all that bad at all.
• The first and only skateboard park in East Africa.

• New Yorkers embrace Bloomberg’s Nanny State. Bill of Rights probably wouldn’t win a popular vote there, either.
• Interesting reaction to my column on DNA exonerations discussing false confessions and the lessons for torture.
• Spies, assassins, and fake beards.
• This seems like a bad sign.
• See, we have to watch all this gay porn so we know how bad it is. Seriously. What? Why are you looking at me like that?
• This story about a school district using school-supplied computers to spy on students via webcam is making the rounds right now. Remember that it is one side of a lawsuit. I’m a little dubious. It seems awfully brazen to me. If it’s true, I’ll be the first to call for tar and feathers.
• He was immediately offered an internship at Dunder-Mifflin.
• What every parent should know about the TV show Glee. Wonderful bit of satire.
• Village of 292 people hires a Washington lobbyist.
• Atlanta woman arrested after asking a cop “why” when he demanded she move from a public sidewalk.

• No criminal charges against the NYPD officers who shot groom-to-be Sean Bell in 2006.
• A history of tech panics, going back to Socrates.
• Meet George Hutchins, the man who wants to lead North Carolina’s 4th Congressional District . . . into 1995.
• Make of this story what you will. Even if the guy was acting erratically, seems like the cops ought to show some restraint. And if true, the show of force at the hospital was ridiculous. Also, for goodness sake, drop the charges. Interestingly, the comments aren’t as pro-police as you typically see in these stories.
• Gulp!
• Audit finds the Census has already wasted millions, and it hasn’t officially started yet.
• Interesting article on the use of food and drink in police interrogations.
• How the Beatles contributed to soaring health care costs.

• Virginia college students caught throwing snowballs at an unmarked police car charged with “throwing missiles at occupied vehicles,” a felony. I’m sure terrorism charges are on the way.
• The Mayans are messing with us.
• Lede: “A Torrance police sergeant will not be charged in an off-duty hit-and-run collision, although he admitted he fled because his “judgment was impaired by alcohol,” according to prosecutors.”
• Jessica, Tony, and Kevin get an A+!
• More felony, child porn charges for “sexting” teens.
• Studies find that race, gender of judges have significant impact on rulings.

So I am quite literally snowed in right now. Front door won’t open. It’s been crazy. Photos and videos of puppy snow frolicking forthcoming.

In the meantime….

• Actual sentence from an actual news story: “It’s designed for young girls ages 8 and older, but some say the mysterious product is a “dangerous spiritual game” that opens up anyone, particularly Christians, to attacks on their soul.”
• Because anything that tastes good is obviously an appeal to children.
• Looks like the former DA Texas Gov. Rick Perry appointed to head up the state’s forensics panel is doing all he can to make sure the panel does nothing to help the state’s forensics system.
• Here’s a good cop story: Bozeman, Montana cop buys food for man caught shoplifting school supplies for his kids.
• Time to renew my ACLU membership.
• Gun-free snowball fights. Novel idea!
• Twelve-year-old Queens girl hauled out of school in handcuffs for writing on desk.

The Boston Globe reports that police n Massachusetts are using the state’s wiretapping laws to arrest people who record cops on the job. Massachusetts is one of 12 two party consent states, which cops are interpreting to mean you can’t record them without their permission.

The state’s supreme court upheld such a conviction in 2001, finding that “Secret tape recording by private individuals has been unequivocally banned, and, unless and until the Legislature changes the statute, what was done here cannot be done lawfully.” I’d think you could make a strong case that a public employee entrusted with the power to forcibly detain and kill falls outside the scope of a “private individual.”

According to the Globe, subsequent cases have turned on whether the recording was done secretly (in which case convictions are usually upheld), or openly (in which case the charges are usually dropped).

Boston police are claiming that recording them while on duty violates their privacy rights and may interfere with their ability to make arrests.

Harvey Silverglate wrote about one Massachusetts case for the Boston Phoenix in 2008. My argument for ensuring that it’s always legal to record on-duty cops here.