About a week and a half ago, a student here received a DWI whilst driving home. The very next week, she was back in the bar.
Her friends, astonished to see her there, asked: “What are you doing here?” Seein’ as how going to the bar while a DWI charge is pending is sorta illegal. She replies, “since it wasn’t in the police blotter, it doesn’t count.” (Possibly relevant facts–DWI on Friday; our newspaper is only a weekly, comes out on Thursday; she was back at the bar the very next Friday. And we’re talking about being in Texas, here, for you legal-minded types.)
Anyway:
Sounds to me like a lot of bullshit, and that she’s just fooling herself. But–having no primary knowledge of such matters, I’d like to see what you guys/gals know about Police Blotters in newspapers, legal announcements of DWI, etc. (And, if this whole “it’s gotta be in the newspaper” thing is some sort of UL I’m unfamiliar with… it may help to know that she transferred here from a school in southern California, where she may’ve heard this line of potential nonsense.)
You mean the student was getting blotto? I don’t think that the arrest being publicized has anything to do with the legality of her appearing in a bar. But I’m not a lawyer.
Wait a minute. Someone can be charged with a crime and be prevented from going into a public place before her trial? I thought they only got away with such things here in Virginia.
I’m not aware of any law that forbids someone from being in a bar, or drinking, while a DWI charge is pending.
However, I don’t know Texas law.
Now, if she is free on bond pending her trial, the bond may include conditions like that, and violation of those conditions might lead to her bond being revoked, or to a further charge of bail-jumping. (As odd as it sounds, bail-jumping is not simply running away, but violating any terms of the bond).
In any event, if someone knows of a specific Texas statute to the contrary, I’m all ears.
My understanding of a police blotter is it is a newspaper column in which a local newspaper lists some or all of the crime reports of the local police. It has no official function in the criminal justice system. Rather it’s just like the death notices or the wedding announcements – a weekly listing of what happened in the police department. One paper that I know only lists the funny or interesting crimes that occurred that week.
It would really surprise me if someone’s legal rights or obligations were at all affected by whether the crime were reported in a newspaper. Methinks her idea that not being published in the police blotter makes something better is her either bullshitting you or deluding herself.
On the other hand, I don’t know why going to a bar with a pending DWI would be illegal (unless it is a bail condition or something, which would surprise me, particularly with that whole innocent til proven guilty thing). Stupid, yes. Illegal, I can’t think of a reason it would be off the top of my head.
But having said all that, I don’t know Texas criminal law. Maybe someone who really knows this stuff will come along help you out.
You don’t have a thing to worry about. I’ll have the jury eating out of my hand. Meanwhile, try to escape.
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Well, I’m a criminal law professor in Texas, so I’d like to be of some use here. But everything that’s been said so far sounds right to me and I have no particular knowledge of this small area of the law.
Nevertheless, I did some checking. Texas law specifically provides that based on DWI, licence suspension may begin on the day of conviction. If the defendant is under 21, it must begin on the day of conviction. (Let me know if you need the cites.) The absense of any provision, or reference to any provision, concerning prior suspension strongly implies to me that any current restriction on your friend is based on a bond condition, as has been suggested.
I agree with everybody that whether something is pulbished in a police blotter would be irrelevant. I can’t offer specific authority to support this, but if the law was to the contrary, I’d be very surprized.
Tony
Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe: the starry skies above me and the moral law within me. – Kant
She’s foolishly gambling that she “can’t be tried for the same crime twice!” But seriously folks, unless a judge orders her not to enter bars, she hasn’t done anything illegal, has she?
“They’re coming to take me away ha-ha, ho-ho, hee-hee, to the funny farm where life is beautiful all the time… :)” - Napoleon IV
What Billdo describes is purportedly a reproduction of the police blotter; the blotter itself is in the police station with Sgt. O’Reilly.
Most agencies (in the USoA) haven’t used traditional, ledger-type blotters in years, though I imagine some small departments may still use them. They’ve been replaced by dispatch logs, computer-aided dispatch systems, booking logs (many of which still remain on paper), and so forth.