Ciekawostka w dzisiejszym The Boston Globe. Prawo do bycia pijanym na
prywatnym terenie. Oczywiscie krawezniki dostaly biegunki majac
perspektywe wyplacenia odszkodowania z wlasnej kieszeni i raptem udaja
glupich.

W tekscie najpewniej chodzi o ten paragraf:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/111b-8.htm


Przy okazji, to maja tam paragrafy na takich zbrodniarzy:


cukierki z alkoholem:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/270-8.htm
bluznierstwo przeciwko Jezusowi Chrystusowi, Duchowi Swietemu i
"swietemu slowu Boga":
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-36.htm
homoseksualizm:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-35.htm
zdrada malzenska:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/272-14.htm

i najwazniejsze...

plucie w miejscu publicznym:
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/mgl/270-14.htm
:-P





Lawsuit asserts right to get drunk on private property

By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff | July 8, 2005

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.

This week, 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."

Waltham Deputy Police Chief Paul Juliano declined to comment on the suit
on the advice of the city's legal department.

Several lawyers who represent some of the biggest police departments in
the state said they believed the state's protective custody law clearly
gives police the authority to take inebriated people into custody. But
they said it was the first time they had seen someone challenge the law
on the grounds that one has a constitutional right to get drunk on
private property.

Boston attorney Leonard Kesten, who has defended many police departments
in civil rights cases, said legal precedent has established that police
cannot just show up at someone's home without cause and take suspected
drunks into protective custody. But, he said, if officers are
investigating a crime or responding to an incident and discover that
someone is drunk, they are obligated by law to take that person into
protective custody if he or she could hurt themselves or others.

''You can drink all you want as long as you're not a danger to yourself
or others," he said, adding that police have been sued for failing to
take people into protective custody who later died from alcohol
poisoning or killed others in drunken-driving accidents.

Laverriere said that he drank several beers, but wasn't drunk, when
officers arrived at his friend's duplex on Lyman Street about 2:30 a.m.
and said someone had thrown bottles at a passing police cruiser. When
everyone denied throwing bottles, Laverriere said, officers began
screaming and ''becoming more threatening," prompting him to pick up a
friend's digital camera and start videotaping.

Officer Jorge Orta ''came running to me, ripped the camera out of my
hand and threw me down on the floor," Laverriere said in the interview,
adding that he injured his shoulder and is scheduled to have surgery
next month.

Laverriere said that although he told police he had been invited to
spend the night at the house, the officers insisted on taking him into
protective custody. While police arranged for local partygoers to take
taxis home, other out-of-town guests were allowed to remain at the
house, he said.

''Heaven forbid if we've reached the point where police can take you out
of your home because you're drunk and not hurting anybody," said Harvey
Schwartz, a Boston civil rights lawyer who filed the suit on behalf of
Laverriere and believes that the protective custody law implicitly
applies to public places.

One police report says that Laverriere appeared intoxicated and
expressed ''displeasure" at being told he had to leave the party.
Laverriere said he could not leave because he lived in Maine, the report
says, and was then taken into custody. The report says he fell to the
floor while resisting Orta's efforts to handcuff him. Schwartz accused
the police of retaliating against Laverriere because he tried to
videotape them, noting that other partygoers who had been drinking were
allowed to remain at the house.

According to police reports, after two champagne bottles and a beer
bottle were hurled at the cruiser, officers went into the home and found
about 25 people inside, many of whom appeared intoxicated.

One Lyman Street neighbor, Joseph Saulnier, recalled the New Year's Eve
party as a rowdy affair. ''It was very loud. There were cars parked
everywhere on the street. People were everywhere," he said.

Laverriere contends that the party was winding down and he was sitting
in a recliner, watching television, and drinking water when police
showed up at the house.

''I can understand if you're abusive to a housemate or you do something
that is damaging or life-threatening they can come and remove you," he
said. ''But if you're just sitting there having a good time with friends
and don't do anything wrong?"

Attorney Timothy Burke of Needham, who represents the Massachusetts
State Police and about 30 other police departments, said police had a
right to enter the home to investigate the bottle-tossing incident. In
most cases, Burke said, police take people into protective custody whom
they could arrest for disorderly conduct, trespassing, or some other charge.

''More often it's used to give a person a break and not arrest them," he
said.

Globe correspondent Cristina Silva contributed to this report.