Police State Amerika: Being drunk & annoying a cop is a criminal act in some states

Get a few drinks in some people, and they can become a little annoying.

But just when does that behavior cross the line from simply obnoxious to criminal?

Indiana's public intoxication law doesn't make that clear, even though it allows for a criminal charge if a person who has been drinking and in a public setting "harasses, annoys or alarms another person."

That was a problem for the Court of Appeals, which in February overturned the conviction of Rodregus Morgan, an Indianapolis man whose alcohol-induced public conduct was found annoying by a police officer.

Now, the Indiana Supreme Court has agreed to step in at the request of the attorney general's office, which is responsible for defending challenges to state laws.

The Supreme Court's five justices voted unanimously last week to take up the case that started in the early-morning hours of Aug. 31, 2012, when an off-duty police officer working security for IndyGo spotted Morgan passed out on a bench in a Downtown bus shelter. Morgan's brother was yelling, trying to get him to wake up.

The brothers were the only people in the bus shelter when the officer encountered them. The officer was able to wake Morgan, who became agitated and angry, and he detected the odor of alcohol on Morgan's breath, court records say.

Believing Morgan was intoxicated, "coupled with the fact that ... his behavior was annoying," according to the records, the officer arrested Morgan for public intoxication.

The appellate panel, however, found the "annoying" standard unconstitutionally vague. A criminal statute "must include some 'scientifically objective measurement for compliance' so that the public is aware of the conduct that will subject them to arrest," the appeals opinion said.

The troubling term, "annoying," was added when the public intoxication law was updated in 2012, said Joel Schumm, a professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. The goal, he explained, was to limit officer discretion and narrow the law to cases where a person was causing harm or affecting others.

Before the law was updated, Indiana was among 11 states "with broadly written public intoxication statutes," according to a 2011 Indiana Law Review note written by McKinney student Ian M. Fleming.

In May 2014 an Appellate Court in Arizona ruled being drunk in public is no longer a criminal act. Click here to read more.

Thirteen other states, including Kentucky and Michigan, required some element of endangerment or disturbance, while 20 states "expressly ban criminally punishing public intoxication," the report said. The remaining states left public drinking rules to local jurisdictions.

New York passed a bill making it a crime to annoy police, click here to read more.
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2014/05/13/supreme-court-decide-whether-drunk-annoying-criminal/9032887/