Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban, misc.legal
Followup-To: misc.legal
From: hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil (Dan Hoey)
Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 22:06:19 GMT
Subject: Parking violations (was Re: Driving whilst barefoot)

jkirk...@osiris.hmc.edu (Jose Kirkland) wrote of a guy who became
drunk and loud in his ex-girlfriend's apartment building's parking
lot.  Police were called, noticed he was drunk, and told him that he
was trespassing and must leave.  According to the driver, they said
``that he must take the car he drove there with him or it would be
impounded.''  When he drove out of the parking lot, the police
arrested him for DUI.

v140p...@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case) quotes it and writes:

>I heard a story once of someone who was pulled over on the side of
>Pennsylvania avenue in Washington DC (very wide, for those of you
>who haven't been there) with his engine running talking to a friend
>on the sidewalk. Since it was a no-parking zone, some DC parking-
>enforcement cop came up to write a ticket.  The driver protested that
>he wasn't parked as his engine was running. The cop asked to see
>his registration. In order to do this, he had to open his glove
>compartment, which was locked at the time. He took the key out of
>the ignition and was ticketed for parking in a no-parking zone.

I suspect this story has been worded to deceive--could it have come
from a source with an axe to grind?  I've heard [from a lady who was
ticketed] that the criterion DC uses for whether a car is parked is
how long the car has been stopped, not whether the engine is running
or the key is in the ignition [OBUL: You can park anywhere as long as
you leave the engine running.  Take a spare key so you can lock the
door].  It certainly has nothing to do with the width of the street.

Dan Case signs as:

>Dan "I believe entrapment would work as a defense in both cases" Case

d...@gemini.gsfc.nasa.gov (Doug S. Caprette) replies:

> Probably not in the second case.  From what I read in the papers, DC
> does not recognise defense for parking violations.  Being cited is
> taken as irrefutable proof of guilt.

Either you are misrepresenting what you read, or you are reading
papers that contain more blatant falsehoods than the ones I read.
If you want to know how to contest a parking ticket, you can call
202-767-5000 and listen to DC's own voice mail instructions.

> In the first case, I would guess that the cops were hoping the man
> would articulate his reasons for refusing to drive.  Then they could
> point out that he admitted being drunk and run him in for public
> intoxification.  Since the arrest for DUI was plainly a result of
> entrapment, I would guess that any subsequent evidence of
> intoxication (e.g. blood test) would be inadmissible.

Feh.  I certainly don't believe it was entrapment.  And I suspect that
the police statement quoted above has gotten altered in the third-hand
retelling so that it sounds more like an order to DUI than it really
was.  The police are not allowed to tell him to drive away, but they
don't have to tell him not to.  But after he does, it's their job to
arrest him, and I'm sure it would stick.

> Bet he spent the night in jail regardless (and didn't get into any
> further trouble, I might add), which is clearly what the cops
> wanted.

Think again.  The original story begins:

> i met this fellow at about two in the morning at a bus stop, very
> secure situation, you can be sure, and he was drunk, and told me a
> story: apparently he had just broken up with a girlfriend....

Sounds like he was released (sans car) the same night.  I expect he
was required to attend his day in court, if only to plead guilty.
That is, if any of the events of the story actually happened--it sure
sounds like blarney to me.

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil