If you ever wonder about government's ability to justify its actions, at least to itself, just ask Patience Paye about her experience.
The Waterloo, Iowa, woman was arrested two years ago on a public intoxication charge. Was she weaving her way down a public street? Did she stumble out of a bar and dive headlong into the nearest ditch?
No. She was standing on the front steps of her own home.
Police arrested Paye after she called for help during what was termed a domestic dispute with her boyfriend, according to news reports last week about an Iowa Supreme Court decision in Paye's case. Paye had stepped out onto her front steps to talk with the responding police officer while the other party in the dispute told another officer the two frequently fought. According to police, the man had refused to give Paye her car keys because she was drunk and she did not have a driver's license.
Paye twice failed breathalyzer tests, recording a blood alcohol level more than three times the legal limit for driving, and was arrested for public intoxication, a misdemeanor.
Really? Since when did a person's own home become public? Apparently, in Iowa, some folks view it that way. A judge convicted Paye of the charge although throughout her court proceedings she argued public intoxication should at the least require the person charged to have been intoxicated in a public place.
State prosecutors argued any modicum of public access would make a place public under Iowa law, according to Reuters.
Now, I'm certainly not advocating anyone -- particularly any of my neighbors -- stand in the middle of their front yards amid a pile of beer cans trying to determine just how many can be consumed before they pass out, but as long as they're not harming anyone else, shouldn't they have that freedom on, of all places, their own property? In the case of Paye, she was apparently inside her own home until the police got there and inquired about what was going on.
It seems the principle of the Castle Doctrine -- the idea that a person's home is his/her castle normally applied to situations involving the use of force in one's defense -- should certainly apply to inebriation when the drunk person involved is not engaging in a public disruption. Heck, suggesting a guy or gal can't be drunk on his own steps or porch could get a lot of law enforcement officers in trouble.
Again, I'm not so much advocating drunkenness as much as I'm suggesting government's ideas about its authority sometimes -- oftentimes -- needs to be reigned in.
The Iowa Supreme Court agreed.
"If the front stairs of a single-family residence are always a public place, it would be a crime to sit there calmly on a breezy summer day and sip a mojito, celebrate a professional achievement with a mixed drink of choice, or even baste meat on the grill with a bourbon-infused barbeque sauce -- unless one first obtained a liquor license," Justice Daryl Hecht wrote for the court.
By that standard, an intoxicated person could be arrested and convicted for walking up the stairs of his own house after securing a ride home from a sober designated driver, Hecht said.
Police have a difficult job to do and I have all the respect in the world for the men and women out there trying their best to serve the public within the confines of sometimes convoluted laws and judicial interpretations. But of all places, I should have every right to sit on my front steps and drink until I pass out, if I'm so inclined. Don't drive by expecting to see me there, though. I've still got a six-pack in my garage fridge someone brought over to the house two New Year's Eves back.
Paye's attorney, Public Defender Rachel Regenold, told The Associated Press the ruling is important from a property rights and personal liberty perspective.
"There was a concern how this could be extended if the court had found that front steps or front porches were public," she said.
Those steps aren't public. That's why we're free to tell the magazine-hawking teenager or the woman thrusting a religious tract to get the heck off of them, although I highly recommend a more polite retort.
Plus, if a person can't have a beer or 10 on his own front porch without fear of arrest for public intoxication, there are a bunch of duct-taped La-Z-Boys here in the South that would have to be moved inside.
Commentary on 06/15/2015