By this logic, then, drug possession bans would also be unconstitutional, since addiction can similarly be considered a disease.
I think individual restrictions on alcohol consumption are fairly widespread. When guilty defendants are sentenced to probation, they receive a form that details certain restrictions on their behavior. For instance, if there’s a victim in the case the defendant is usually restrained from approaching or contacting them. If alcohol was involved, the defendant may be enjoined not to “use or possess alcoholic beverages, or enter places where they are the chief item of sale.” I’ve seen the form for California, and a wide variety of retrictions and injunctions are listed with checkboxes next to each one; the alcohol restriction is about the first one you see.
The 21st amendment says that it shall be illegal to import alcohol into any state against the laws thereof, so a state can ban imports, either to enforce total prohibition within its borders, or to protect its own vintners and brewers.
Thank you, but you are not the offender I was thinking of. Claims buttressed by support of case law, whether the law is directly on point or being offered to invite the reader to draw the next obvious inference, are fine.
Conclsory allegations with no statement of analytical method or supporting case law, on the other hand, not so much. If this thread devolves into discussing that behavior, though, its next address will be the Pit, and that’s not the goal.
[hijack]
Y’know, it’s a crying shame that you don’t play Dungeons and Dragons, because you won’t understand me when I say that you’re the quintessential lawful good character arguing with chaotic good characters.
For me, the law is a depressing means to an ends; if the law advises unethical behavior, it’s far better to break the law than to engage in the unethical behavior. A policeman has an ethical duty not to enforce an unethical law; a soldier has an ethical duty not to fight in an unethical war. Not only that, but the ethical duty imposed on me to obey an unnecessary law is extremely slight.
I suspect the Constitution is so revered in our society that some folks use “Constitutional” as synonymous with “good” when it comes to the law. I try not to do this. Something may be both Constitutional and severely fucked up, and the fact that it’s Constitutional is only important to me in terms of strategy, not in terms of ethics. You fight Constitutional evil in a different form from how fight unconstitutional evil; you don’t fight it any less.
Not only was I (way back in the day) a D&D player, I had a paladin player character.
YES!
This statement should be engraved on a heavy brass plaque, which could then be used to bonk over the head any person making the mistake described therein.
Consider also that such prohibitions regarding alcohol consumption are done in the setting of sentencing a person convicted of a crime. That is, Joe Blow may be sentenced to 6 years in prison for his 4th drunk driving conviction, but he may be released after 2 years if he abstains from all alcohol while on parole. Joe Blow agrees to this, but after being released his PO sees him drinking, has him arrested, and he’s sent back to finish the rest of his sentence.
Now of course, Joe Blow protests that he’s been arrested just for drinking, not drinking and driving, and his rights are being trampled on. But in reality he’s being sent back to prison for breaking his parole agreement.
For Og’s sake. Since you essentially admit to attempting a gotcha here,
, then you should indeed have started in the Pit.
Giving you undue credit for good faith here anyway, you do seem to be under the impression that Equal Protection is a be-all and end-all for some persons. That belief is as unfounded as this homeless person’s attempt to claim relief under it. Other persons’ rights exist and apply, and when weighed against his right to get drunk obviously supercede them. But I already said that when listing a few, didn’t I? If you truly don’t follow, I can’t help you.
Now, do you want to claim that drunks fall into a class that is subject to strict or intermediate scrutiny, or acknowledge that there obviously is a rational basis for this law? Or do you have nothing better to do with your time than try to play gotcha games (and lose)?
The first part surprises me mildly; the second part doesn’t surprise me at all :D.
I agree (obviously). At the same time, it seems the OP is part of a continuing argument, one that I’m coming into halfway, so I appear to be seriously missing out on nuance here.
What is the Constitutional status of other kinds of prohibition on public behavior that is legal in private?
There is nothing illegal, IOW, if I want to have sex with the Lovely and Talented Mrs. Shodan, but we can’t do so on our front lawn. Similarly, I believe there are laws against drinking in public, and other kinds of legal-in-private-but-illegal-in-public, like nudity or what have you.
I don’t see any Constitutional reasoning behind any of what this drunk guy is arguing. If he is saying that he is subject to discrimination because he is an alcoholic, that doesn’t work - non-alcoholics can’t drink in public any more than alcoholics. If he is saying that he is being discriminated against because he has no house which he can use to conceal his drinking, that doesn’t work either - he has been sentenced not to drink at all, and it would be a violation of his sentence even if he was getting drunk in his own living room. I doubt if the Constitution requires people to be given the opportunity to conceal parole violations.
If he is arguing that being sentenced to refrain from drinking alcohol is cruel and unusual punishment, I doubt that as well. If he had been sentenced to prison, he would not be allowed to drink. Being allowed to walk the streets but still not drink is less of a deprivation than being locked up and suffering imposed sobriety.
So, unsurprisingly, I don’t see that he has a leg to stand on, hollow or not.
No. My OP is about the Equal Protection claims. When Duke asks if its a debate or a question, I point out that in previous GD threads on the subject of EP, there has been a tolerance for wild-assed opion-giving masquerading as debate.
I seem to be under that impression?
Uh huh.
Well, you have undoubtedly listed some rights of other people, and you have weighed them against the alcoholic’s “right” to get drunk.
Why you chose to do that, and how you balanced those rights, are complete mysteries to me.
Oh, my. An actual question based on the actual process for analyzing EP claims! Be still, my heart!
No, I don’t argue that the classification created by this law is suspect. And I agree that Rational Basis is the right standard to apply. Finally, I agree that the law in question survives the Rational Basis test.
That was wonderful. An argument based on actual principles from a poster heretofore completely disinclined to use such tools. I may have this thread bronzed.
The question Bricker has posed is a completely valid one that would be completely appropriate for discussion in a law school consitutional law class. The Supreme Court held in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660 (1964) that “a state law which imprisons a person thus afflicted [with narcotic addiction] as a criminal, even though he has never touched any narcotic drug within the State or been guilty of any irregular behavior there, inflicts a cruel and unusual punishment” and is violative of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. Vagrancy is also generally considered a constitutionally suspect status crime because it criminalizes homelessness. However, in Powell v. Texas, 392 U.S. 514 (1968), the Supremes held that that same logic didn’t apply when an alcoholic challenged public intoxication laws on the grounds that he had understaken a voluntary act and not merely held a status. However, in concurrence Justice White stated:
Bolding mine. So the argument being made by the defendant in the OP is that an act that would otherwise not be prosecuted, being an alcoholic in the possession of alcohol, is being punished in his case because he is alcoholic and homeless. Alcoholics with homes go unpunished. The question is, what is a status and what is an act?
…and then Joe Blow realizes his parents must have named his that for a reason and takes up cocaine…
as to the OP, I’d have to get more information to see if the punishment is excessive, but if the defendant has had a long history of harmful crimes committed under the influence, it might be warranted. Crimes such as DUI, or battery, not just general public intoxication.
In those few cases, from a practical perspective it may be worthwhile to crack down enough on an addicts behavior such that you can “get them” for possession, even though I have my civil rights qualms about this.
Especially since laws like that can be used to punish your random drunk or addict just as much as they can your violent, noncontrite drunk driver. Same applies to public drunkenness laws.
There are any number of acts which, if performed in privacy, are not criminal, yet are most certainly and appropriately criminal if performed in public. Pooping on your living room floor is not a crime. Pooping on a public sidewalk most certainly is. The criminality of the latter act is independent of the pooper’s claimed “status” as a homeless person.
A law that imprisons alcoholics due to their status as alcohlics violates the prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. (According to Robinson, anyway, even though it’s a stupid decision.) A law that imprisons any person for consuming alcohol does not violate the C&UP clause or, so far as I can tell, any other Constitutional provision.
