"...no I don't have a square to spare, I can't spare a square."
Posted on 09/10/2007 1:53:06 PM PDT by shrinkermd
The details of Sen. Larry Craig's arrest in a Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom shocked his colleagues and constituents, but he was not the only person ensnarled in the airport police action against suspected lewd conduct in the restroom. Thirty-nine other men were arrested at the airport in a three-month period this summer.
A review of their cases and interviews with four lawyers representing many of the suspects show how Craig - who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct but now says he is not guilty - fits into the larger picture of the sting operation and sheds light on his prospects in court should he be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea.
Police and court files indicate Craig's case may have been handled more harshly than some of the others. For instance, he alone among the 40 men arrested was charged with both disorderly conduct and interference with privacy. The other men were charged with one or the other or with indecent exposure or loitering.
Patrick Hogan, a spokesman for the airport and the law firm it hired to prosecute the cases, said Craig was the only man charged with two offenses because he had peered into the police officer's stall and had used unspoken signals - foot tapping and hand motions - known as ways to solicit restroom sex. Craig, who insists he is not gay, said the arresting officer misinterpreted his actions.
Craig was one of 20 men charged with interference with privacy, a gross misdemeanor; the penalty is up to a year in jail. But the defense lawyers said the law, adopted two years ago in response to cases involving hidden cameras in girls' rooms, had never been used in a sex sting operation.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
He’s a freaking Senator. Why in the world did he plead guilty?
What does ID think now? People there must feel a sense of being “had” by a veteran officeholder.
Looks like God’s flushing the GOP toilet. They are dropping like flies.
Columnist Joseph Farah pointed out last week that Craig could not have been arrested because he was en route to Washington for Senate business. The Constitution forbids misdemeanor arrests in such instances. However, Farah said that Craig must have a weak understanding of what is in the Constitution that he was sworn to uphold.
GO AWAY, LARRY. TODAY.
At Sen Craig’s age he could be having some early symptoms of Parkinson's.
OK it’s an old joke, but still a way for him to shake the charges.
Don’t you know the other perverts are all sweating that they will be publically exposed, thanks to the Craig publicity.
Talk about bad luck.
“flushing the GOP toilet. They are dropping like flies.”
Flushing should reduce the number of flies.
Flushing could be a sign!!
Makes good propaganda but more hyperbole than truth.
At least in the GOP they more readily censure their errant members instead of circling the wagons around them as do the dim-witted Dims every time.
If memory serves me correct, Lousiana's $100,000 embezzler, Democrat Jefferson, still has his seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
If the Dims are not "dropping like" flies, it's only because their criminals get protective custody, and continuation in office, from their corrupt leadership.
There once was an old guy named Larry
Who often in restrooms did tarry.
When cops caught him looking
And gave him a booking,
He flushed and said, "I'm not a fairy!"
Sheeat, it is simple, if you are tempted to take another mans penis in your mouth, you are a freakin sicko! If you are overcome by sicko urges of this nature, ain’t no telling what else you are likely to do, and you are no longer worthy of public trust!
Little teeny tiny girls are off limits, too, Hell, why is normal suddenly so Damned hard to define?
Maybe he just didn't want to get into an argument about what he was or wasn't doing in the restroom.
When the story first broke I was reminded of the old movie, Cruising, with Al Pacino. From that I wondered about the senator. What’s his preferance, pitching, or catching? eeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwww!
They tried taking out radio hosts a few years ago.
The point is that pleas happen all the time and if one were to assume Craig were innocent, many people in Craig’s situation would have done the same thing. If he is innocent, he certainly should fight it now. Maybe he should resign and then fight. If not proven guilty, he can run again.
"...no I don't have a square to spare, I can't spare a square."
Anyone who doesn't get that hasn't been paying attention to the story.
That's exactly what the "guilty" plea was all about; to avoid a long, drawn out media circus.
With a vendetta out against him from his local paper, I understand the Senator's actions.
1. The bad news is the court of law (and law enforcement) got this one botched. This is especially true with the tapped interview.
2. The GOOD news is the court of public opinion got this right causing him to resign. His conduct does not pas the duck test. (it does not hurt that he was pro-amnesty either)
Then he SHOULD have plead “no contest” not “guilty”.
A no contest plea is a plea of convenience which essentially says you admit nothing, but feel just dealing with any court punishment is more expeditious than fighting the case.
He could have also conditioned his plea on a “reservation of judgment” or a “withhold of adjudication” which means the judge does not convict the person but issues an order involving court costs or fines or probation and no jail or prison time.
Oh yeah. Pleading guilty would make the attention go away.
Hello!! Pleading guilty would make him look......wait for it.......GUILTY.
Assuming he is innocent, it seems to me this is exactly why he chose to plea to a lesser charge because he knew that as soon as the charge came out the public would automatically believe the police, especially in the context of the "rumors" that the press would have gleefully published.
Any dirt on a candidate is red meat for the opposition and this is a perfect example of it. In this case, the dirt could be a rumor and a botched sting.
Yes, it would...and did for quite awhile.
Until some flunky decided to leak it.
[“They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same”.]
609.72 DISORDERLY CONDUCT.
Subdivision 1. Crime. Whoever does any of the following in a public or private place,
including on a school bus, knowing, or having reasonable grounds to know that it will, or will
tend to, alarm, anger or disturb others or provoke an assault or breach of the peace, is guilty of
disorderly conduct, which is a misdemeanor:
(1) Engages in brawling or fighting; or
(2) Disturbs an assembly or meeting, not unlawful in its character; or
(3) Engages in offensive, obscene, abusive, boisterous, or noisy conduct or in offensive,
obscene, or abusive language tending reasonably to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others.
A person does not violate this section if the person's disorderly conduct was caused by
an epileptic seizure.
Craig admitted that he gave the cop a hard time. That's all (disorderly conduct).
He did resist him, saying "no" several times and refusing to go with him at one point.
Big deal.
And then what happened?
I’ll sure be glad when we are once again remembered for “Famous Potatoes”
The cop sold him a bill-of-goods about quickly paying a fine and it would all go away quietly so the Senator could make his connecting flight.
You’re misreading the statute, VxH. He’s charged with “Disorderly Conduct” if his behavior might *cause* “breach of the peace” because he did one (or more) of those items listed under 1-3.
In my careful layman’s reading, he did not cause nor commit breach of peace under the statute.
[You’re misreading the statute,]
I don't think so.
Looks to me that it depends upon whether or not knowing a U.S. Senator was engaging in communicative behavior intended to result in acts of sodomy being performed in a public restroom would “tend to” cause a breach of peace.
I think it is reasonable to believe that it would. Certainly it has disturbed the peace here on FR.
I don’t think the Constitutional protection is as ironclad as some would like to think.
Which is what he was trying to avoid.
So what? It was worth the try. Definitely.
Now put your right foot in,
Your right foot out,
Right foot in
Then you shake it all about.
And then you do the Hokey Pokey
Turn yourself around,
That's what it's all about.
You put your right hand in,
Your right hand out,
Your right hand in,
And shake it all about...
a “no contest” plea admits nothing.
It is what he signed and stated in the courtroom that matters to his plea and PERSONAL admission.
Exactly.
And the section of the Constitution that Farah and others cite as somehow immunizing Craig from arrest specifically cites "breach of the peace" as one of the exceptions.
Now what we have here is failure to comprehend what one reads.
on’t forget this verse from the official hokey pokey lyrics:
You put your bottom in,
Put your bottom out,
Put your bottom in,
You put your bottom out,
Put your bottom in,
You put your bottom out,
Put your bottom in,
You put your bottom out,
Put your bottom in,
You put your bottom out,
Put your bottom in,
You put your bottom out,
Put your bottom in,
You put your bottom out,
Do the Hokey Pokey,
Turn yourself about.
Once upon an airport dreary, while he wandered weak and weary, over many quaint and curious volume of SkyWest magazine, suddenly there came a rapping, tapping on the men’s room floor, ‘tis some visitor’s shoe he muttered, tapping on the men’s room floor, only this and nothing more.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
(I’ll plead to disordly conduct and nothing more, nothing more)
Must have been like River Dance in there.
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