TheAgitator.com
Texas Public Intoxication Laws Allow Arrests Without Intoxication. Or Even Drinking.
Friday, February 26th, 2010Various 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.
1) State police agencies receive a portion of their funding from the Feds
2) Feds allocate funds based on enforcement levels
3) Enforcement levels are determined by the number of arrests (not convictions, just arrests).
4) States enact BS laws like this one in Texas to make it easier to get that arrest.
5) States get more money and as a bonus can point to increased arrest levels and say they are being effective at reducing crime.
Just shooting from my hip here, if any or all of this is wrong or inaccurate I have no doubt I will be hastily corrected.
but MADD’s fine with this…
I remember those ‘don’t mess with texas’- I thought it was because they were badasses, not meddling nannies.
‘don’t mess with texas’ bumperstickers! oops.
First person to tell Joe Arpaio about this gets drop kicked in the junk.
I believe the full quote is ” Don’t mess with Texas’ streams of revenue.”
#2
Of course they are; Mothers Against Drinking, Dammit oppose all forms of alcohol and all levels of drinking by anyone, anywhere.
As depressing, and clearly unconstitutional, as that is, I have to admit a little happy surprise at the fact that two (two!) cops were actually fired.
Off topic, just in case y’all haven’t seen this yet:
“Former police officer pleads guilty to Danziger Bridge shooting cover-up of stunning breadth”
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/02/former_police_officer_pleads_g.html
http://www.prisonplanet.com/cops_go_to_bars_to_arrest_drunks.html
http://www.getmadd.com/BarsofVirginia.htm
Same thing was going on with Fairfax police here in Virginia in 2003
druff-
WOW.
Steamed McQueen:
Yeah, you basically drilled it.
Add to that a nation of bigots who are perfectly willing to turn the other cheek when a (enter target of bigotry here) gets arrested and you have the current situation.
All the police are doing is hedging their bets by principally focusing on the local target of bigotry for their arrest quotas.
This is a natural evolution of the drug laws. Before, you could hassle, arrest, beat and kill minorities but if you wanted to get a drug charge, you would have to plant them on the person. Y’know, like old ladies in Georgia. Now you don’t even need to plant something: just decide the person is guilty!
Mike L +10
There will be a day when you’ll receive a wristband when entering a bar which limits patrons to a certain number of drinks.
It has already happened on college campuses – it’ll happen at the bars sooner or later.
“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.”
This has my vote for Quote of the Year. It is logical and rhetorical perfection.
How much different is the Texas PI law from disorderly conduct laws that allow a police officer to challenge anyone in an assholic manner and then arrest the individual when any objection or resistence is encountered. Recall the case of the woman arrested for dicorderly conduct when she asked an officer why she was being ordered to remove herself from a public sidewalk as she was standing peacebly conversing with friends.
Like I needed another excuse to avoid Texas.
Off topic, but juicy:
There’s an editorial in the B’more Sun attacking Calvo and supporting swat raids generally:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/readersrespond/bal-calvoletter0226,0,2155059.story
Choice quotes include:
“If mistakes were made during the operation in Berwyn Heights, then those mistakes were no doubt identified and appropriate training and policy modifications put in place.”
Nick, if you are going to post such dangerously funny quotes such as your last stanza, please give us fair warning! I nearly had a coronary I laughed so hard!!!
1) State police agencies receive a portion of their funding from the Feds
2) Feds allocate funds based on enforcement levels
3) Enforcement levels are determined by the number of arrests (not convictions, just arrests).
4) States enact BS laws like this one in Texas to make it easier to get that arrest.
5) States get more money and as a bonus can point to increased arrest levels and say they are being effective at reducing crime.
Just shooting from my hip here, if any or all of this is wrong or inaccurate I have no doubt I will be hastily corrected.
None of is inaccurate, but the reason it works is that people don’t believe the “better 10 guilty men go free than one innocent convicted” adage. It’s fact, it’s quite the opposite. We’re willing bust loads of innocent people to get the guilty. That’s what all the police whining about “getting off on a technicality (which includes not committing any crime” leads to.
And there’s this, which I like to think of as the “Col. Nathan Jessup” defense…
“Only a tiny percentage of those operations result in serious injuries to suspects, hostages or officers. When that does occur it is almost always as a result of the actions of the suspects which require the officers to use some level of force. SWAT officers are among the most dedicated, professional and highly-trained members of law enforcement, and they face the most dangerous situations regularly. They are not just people who “dress up in military gear and kick in doors.” Perhaps if Mayor Calvo had ever had to face such danger he would understand.”
There are a lot of foreign countries where interactions with police are routinely handled with a bribe. It’s so common, even tourist books advise you about it. It’s a fact of daily life. There’s a word for it: corruption. There is a threshold beyond which law enforcement is no longer controllable.
That’s where we’re headed.
#22, where we’re headed? I say it’s where we’ve been for a LONG time, maybe since humans have existed.
Radley – I thought I’d alert you to the most powerful libertarian senator in American history http://www.theonion.com/content/news/senator_dikembe_mutombo_blocks
#22
We might be better off if they were corrupt enough to take bribes. But we suffer under the new professionalism. The only ones are highly paid, well armed, and well supported with back up. The citizens are the enemy, to be controlled and crushed anytime a government thug comes into contact with one.
Where is the all powerful Alcohol lobby?
What about the chamber of commerce or small business associations in Texas. This PI law is a natural enemy of each of these groups and you would think that their combined efforts would be enough to put a stop to the ridiculous notion of arresting people in a bar for drinking.
Some beer company should put out an ad about this and shame the shht out of Texas for this blatantly un-American practice.
And let’s point out the obvious- cops drink a lot (at least on the wire they do) so I wonder what one of these PI task force guys would say if they were arrested at their local after a hard days work?
#26
There are a lot of states that can be shamed. In Kentucky, even sitting on your front porch drinking a beer will get you a PI charge, if the cop that drives by wants to roust you.
“Perhaps if Mayor Calvo had ever had to face such danger he would understand.”
He did face those dangers, and now he does understand.
Salvatore J. Culosi also faced those dangers, but he was gunned down by a SWAT member with an itchy trigger finger before he could understand like Calvo now does.
There was no ‘public safety’ issue in either of these raids. Yet, people were terrified, guns were pointed and fired. Lives were lost.
All with no criminal actions against the perpetrators.
Use of SWAT teams need to be curtailed.
Nick Novello, a 27-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, blew the whistle on three colleagues
I think we just won the lottery! Could Officer Novello be one of those “honest, good cops” you always hear about (but usually can’t be found whenever there’s police misbehavior going on)? I’d like to buy that man a six-pack.
I’ve lived in countries where the police take bribes. It’s a marvelously efficient system.
1) Cop detains you for some reason, probably because he’s hungry and hasn’t been paid in a while.
2) Cop informs you that the violation or infraction carries a certain fine.
3a) If you are fortunate enough to speak the local language as I was you can negotiate with them.
4) Pay cop.
5) Cop goes away. End of story.
Corrupt? Of course. But don’t we have the same thing here?
Only instead of paying the cop directly, we get dragged through the meat grinder that’s called the justice system and now there are LOT of people who have to be paid, not to mention the upkeep on all the facilities. So what costs a few dollars in most other countries ends up costing many thousands of dollars here.
Police, courts and prisons are the only part of the American economy that is growing. Why? Because it’s the only thing we can’t outsource.
Rich H. @ 30
Hey?! What kind of rat bastard would do something like that to a brother officer?
(Note: I just thought I’d get that in there, now. Since tomorrow they’ll be a quote to that effect as the story unfolds in the papers.)
Yikes!!!
…there’ll be…
As a long time reader I can’t tell you how great it is to be quoted on The Agitator. Awesome.
This law existed long before MADD.
The actual section from the Texas Penal Code:
Sec. 49.01. DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:
(2) “Intoxicated” means:
(A) not having the normal use of mental or physical faculties by reason of the introduction of alcohol, a controlled substance, a drug, a dangerous drug, a combination of two or more of those substances, or any other substance into the body; or
(B) having an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more.
Sec. 49.02. PUBLIC INTOXICATION. (a) A person commits an offense if the person appears in a public place while intoxicated to the degree that the person may endanger the person or another.
Yes, it’s been abused. But remember: police can arrest you for anything, nothing, or something they made up that isn’t even against the law. A conviction is a different matter, but you won’t beat the ride.
What empowers racist/homophobic cops is the ever expanding definition of what constitutes PI. Our pro state appellate courts used their magic powers of conservative judicial activism to rewrite the statue so that can nearly any arrest can be justified.
http://www.dallascriminaldefenselawyerblog.com/2009/07/public_intoxication_police_bru.html
I live in Mexico. People bitch about paying the USD equivalent of a $16.00 bribe to be let go for being pulled over for no or little reason. It is over in about 2 minutes. Tonight, after having two margaritas, my car would not start and a pickup truck of Mexican police pulled by the restaurant just as I was going to pay a union thug cab driver to take me home, where I would have had to roust a friend with jumper cables to drive me back and jump start it.
So I flagged down the pickup truck of cops and they immediately jump started the car and paid them (they asked for nothing) $8.00 USD equivalent in pesos. BFD.
I’ve lived in Cabo for about four years. My heart no longer palpitates or sinks to my stomach when I see police or even if I’m pulled over by one. I got caught speeding one day by the supposedly bad-ass Federales. Their response to me, and I do speak Spanish close to fluently and that helps a lot, was to be preoccupied that their stop of me might upset me and that was the last thing they wanted to do. It lasted about two minues, and one of the feds gave me his cell phone number in case I needed help in any future police encounters.
My dog can run freely on the beach, and I dutifully pick up after her. The Mexicans would stage a third revolution before permitting cops to be unionized. Teachers unions do exist here, however, and seem to be universally despised.
‘Nick Novello, a 27-year veteran of the Dallas Police Department, blew the whistle on three colleagues’
Given what we know about the way police work, this seems like a warning more than a plaudit.
‘Don’t report corruption, because even in the unlikely event you are taken seriously and the perpetrators convicted, you will still be publically outed so that your career and life can be made a living hell from then on.’
#30 Standard procedure in Ecuador. They even take US money.
(For those who are unaware, Ecuador had a little inflation problem back in 2000. They solved the problem by making the US dollar the national currency.)
@ #30
Don’t be surprised if they do outsource it. I could see them outsourcing the whole prison industry, put the whole thing in China, etc. Got a sentence of over a year? You go to the overseas prison. It’s the next logical step. It’s cheaper, and it keeps the “dangerous” criminals far from the voters. If they escape so what? They’re not likely to get back here. Does anyone think the SCOTUS would do anything to stop it? Hell some of them wouldn’t even stop the execution of a proven innocent.
Robert, getting quoted on The Agitator can be a double-edged sword. Glad you were on the right side of the sword.
The texas law says “(a) A person commits an offense if the person appears in a public place while intoxicated to the degree that the person may endanger the person or another.
(a-1) For the purposes of this section, a premises licensed or permitted under the Alcoholic Beverage Code is a public place.”
Got that? No drinking in licensed areas!
I live near San Antonio , just outside the City limits. Aside from the fact that the country is under a big strain right now. Some people might be dealing with the effects by self-medicating with alcohol. Alcohol is a depressant and only fuels the fires of those already feeling despair. I also believe that limiting a person to only a certain number of drinks per day (the legal limit) could help lower the crime rate but my main interest lies on making this country more amiable and compassionate. Our Constitution was written for our protection, In God’s name. Too bad there’s no law against being evil. I believe that an officer should be held to having to show probable cause before stopping anyone. No matter who he is.