I don’t know enough about the issue to say how common that is, I’m not sure indecent exposure would commonly be plead down to public urination because there are elements of the latter that don’t fit with the former, but I wouldn’t be shocked if first offenders who expose themselves in public are probably plead down to some very low level offense or given some sort of diversion program.
FWIW and I’m straying from GQ here, I don’t think public urination, by default, should be a crime. Historically it was understood if you were out and about and needed to relieve yourself, and no public restrooms were near by, it was acceptable to dip behind a tree or bush and discretely relieve yourself. In most cities it can be difficult to actually find a public restroom if you aren’t a customer at a specific business. I think a lot of these laws were designed to criminalize being homeless more than anything else. The homeless also have a rougher time than many getting access to business restrooms. The reality is if a business has a “restroom only open to paying customers” policy, but a white guy dressed nicely and clean shaven and groomed walks in to use the restroom, it is very unlikely he will be turned away. If a vagrant with disheveled appearance attempts the same, they will be unlikely to be allowed in.
I think if you’re just standing in the middle of the sidewalk or street pissing on stuff, that should be criminal, but if you’re taken reasonable efforts to be discrete about it I really don’t think it should be a criminal matter to take a piss.
I agree with you. If someone makes a good faith effort to conceal themselves when urinating then it should not a criminal act. For example, the difference between pissing behind a dumpster or a bush compared to pissing openly on a sidewalk or open field.
Even discreet urination will result in a smell, though. In any large city, there will be some places (near conveniently-discreet spots) where the smell is overpowering. I’m not saying that laws against public urination are the best solution, but there is at least a problem they’re attempting to solve.
I don’t disagree, but the fact that most cities since the 1960s have massively scaled back or entirely eliminated public restrooms (for a variety of reasons) to me adds a wrinkle to it. Like at a certain point people need to relieve themselves.
This seems unlikely, as described, because a “public urination” charge would presumably require urination, as an element. (For example, in Arlington County where I’m currently sitting, it is “unlawful for any person to urinate or defecate on any street, alley, sidewalk, park, or public place or area where the public gathers or has access, or within public view, other than in facilities designed for such purposes.”). It’s frowned up to have people plead guilty to crimes that they did not actually commit.
That said, a lot of places don’t have a public urination law, which is typically going to be instituted at a municipal level, and I suspect that public urination is often charged as a type of disorderly conduct or public nuisance. And I wouldn’t be surprised if some number of indecent exposure cases are also plead as disorderly conduct or public nuisance type cases to avoid any “sex crime” issue.
No, the question is–is he actually listed as being registered for the crime of “public urination.” A cursory search of Wisconsin law suggests to me such a crime would not ordinarily be a registerable offense there, but the law gets complicated in the edge cases (for example some instances of “lewd and lascivious” behavior charges can get you on the registry in Wisconsin.)
Reality is, a lot of people who commit a minor sex crime and might have it on their record and be registered, have an incentive to minimize and say “I was just pissing in public.” It’s pretty easy given the names of the charges involved that someone who deliberately and abusively exposed their dick to a little kid, could tell friends and associates “yeah, I was taking a piss in a park one day and a kid saw me and his mom freaked out and now I’m a registered sex offender.” I have no idea if that’s what happened to the person you know, and I am 100% not alleging it. Just so far in cases where people have dug into claims of public urination resulting in being on the registry…the facts have not met the claims of the registrant.
'Round these parts, the crime of public urination did involve the ignominy of adding your name to the sex offender registry until about 2010.
A couple years after that – still under the assumption that the law was in effect – I was out jogging, and had to go like the proverbial Russian race horse.*
But there was an elementary school, and a playground full of kids, a busy light industrial park, mostly wide open field, and a number of lakes around with virtually no cover.
I did a full-tilt boogie, sprinting about a quarter-mile to the only tree in the area – an evergreen – and buried myself in the branches in order to gain the most cover possible.
There’s laughingly obvious, and then there’s technically criminal. I exuberantly opted for the former.
Only later did I find out that public urination was (and is) still a crime but was/is no longer a quick ticket to the registry.
You have to have a lot more faith in the basic goodness of our justice system to believe it couldn’t be you in those circumstances, and that you couldn’t wind up in serious trouble.
My bladder was skeptical. So was I.
*Sincere apologies for any offense to Russian race horses
As Martin_Hyde said, I wasn’t accusing you of making it up. I was suggesting your acquaintance might not be entirely forthright about the reason he’s on the registry.
Sorry, I did word that rudely. I saw the paperwork. It involved pissing by the side of a garage and 2 little girls passed by in the alley and told their mothers. Yes, it can be that easy to get on a list. At least in WI
I would be very interested in tracking this down, because it would be the only real life case of it happening that I could find. Any chance you could provide a name or case number and the State it occurred in (Mississippi or Wisconsin). It would be nice to have a concrete example.
A brief search of WI law shows that (just like here) after a conviction or a guilty plea to any crime, a judge can make a finding of sexual motivation which will require a person to register. In questionable cases, I always try to include in a plea agreement that the judge will not make such a finding.
Like others, I don’t doubt your word, but also like others, I fear that your buddy may not be as forthcoming with you as you think, for obvious reasons. It is also possible that he got railroaded, but none of us will know without a full record.
There are many different pieces of paperwork involved in a criminal case, and it’s not clear from the post where you obtained the information regarding “pissing by the side of a garage and 2 little girls passed by in the alley and told their mothers.” but I suspect it was ultimately from your friend* rather than from the description given by the complainant
* Even if it was in a report, if the report was documenting your friend’s account, that info came from your friend.
Friend doesn’t have to be lying about events, either. I mean, maybe he was taking a leak, mom and kids thought they saw him deliberately expose him self (he turned around and wiggled it at us) and cops believed the lady’s account. Getting on sex offender registry because someone mistook your public urination for deliberate exposure is not the same thing as being put on the sex offender registry because of public urination.
But every wanker wiggling his wang about, when caught, always claims they were just taking a wizz.
And for many decades, as a result, no one took exhibitionists very seriously, as criminals or as sex offenders. ‘Well, just look away then!‘, ‘Didn’t really hurt anybody, he’s harmless!’, ‘It’s nothing they’re not gonna see eventually, am I right?’
Two little girls see your wang? I’m never gonna believe you were just peeing, sorry.
I used to live near a train tracks underpass that was wide enough for 2 people to walk through, no more. Year-round it reeked of urine. It had a solitary bulb about in the middle which was smashed most of the time. Great place to tuck in and have a quick pee apparently.
Never once did I hear of anyone being arrested for it.
On the other end of the “public” part of public urination, I went on a date in college. We were in NYC. We got onto the subway in the Village, having consumed a fair bit of beer. The young lady, whose name I oddly remember but surely will not type out here, suddenly jumped up at the first stop out of Manhattan into Queens. On the F Train that would have been Roosevelt Island.
She ran off of the train and I barely made it before the doors closed. Mind you, it was at least 1:30am. She ran to the end of the platform where ( quite typically ) one finds the wooden tool storage crates on the floor, padlocked, about 10 feet from the end wall.
She made use of the meager privacy afforded by the crate, yanked down her pants and peed. I stood WAY away. She finished up, weaved back to me and we waited close to an hour for another subway train.
Nobody saw her. But so clearly she was exposed and anyone standing on the opposing platform would have had quite the view.