In news sure to improve the summer cocktail hours of Iowans everywhere, the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that getting wasted on your own porch is not a crime.
Why did such a statement need to be litigated? The story begins, according to court documents, in June 2013, when Waterloo resident Patience Paye called 911 to report domestic violence.
Police arrived on the scene and began questioning Kendrall Murray, the man Paye claimed was abusing her. He had a different story—that Paye had gotten drunk and became violent when he refused to hand over her car keys.
The officers asked to test Paye’s blood-alcohol levels, and found it was high—around 0.267, while the legal limit for driving is 0.08.
They arrested her for public intoxation. Iowa is one of the only states where public intoxication alone is a crime.
Paye fought the charges, arguing that the purposes of a public intoxication statute could not possibly apply on her own property.
A district court initially upheld the charges, claiming her porch was “public” because it was in plain sight. Iowa code defines public as “any place, building or conveyance to which the public has or is permitted access.”
The Supreme Court disagreed. Noting that Iowa also has a law against consuming alcohol “in a public place,” the court argued, “Thus, 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 barbecue sauce—unless one first obtained a liquor license.”
The court also pointed out other absurdities that could result from ruling porches “public” areas—like arresting a drunk person trying to get home from the bar, because they walked over the “public” steps of their home along the way—and concluded that “Paye cannot be guilty of public intoxication because she was not intoxicated in a public place.”
(h/t Reason)
