U.S. Senator Arrested (And Things I Didn't Know About Propositioning Gay Sex)
 

I have no idea how this story avoided the media for 2 months, but US Senator Larry Craig (Idaho) was arrested and pled guilty to misdemeanor Disorderly Conduct back in June for trying to get some action in a Minneapolis airport bathroom

http://www.idahostatesman.com/eyepie...ry/143517.html

The abridged version:

According to the police reports, a man, later identified as Craig, kept watching the undercover police officer through a crack in the stall. Craig then entered the next-door stall and placed his luggage against the opening under the stall door.

"My experience has shown that individuals engaging in lewd conduct use their bags to block the view from the front of their stall," said the officer, Sgt. Dave Karsnia, in the report.

The report continued: "At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area."

The report said Craig swiped his hand beneath the stall divider several times, and Karsnia showed his police identification under the stall.

"With my left hand near the floor, I pointed towards the exit," the report said. "Craig responded, 'No!' I again pointed towards the exit. Craig exited the stall with his roller bags without flushing the toilet. ... Craig said he would not go. I told Craig that he was under arrest, he had to go, and that I didn't want to make a scene. Craig then left the restroom."

Craig was detained about 45 minutes and questioned by officers at the Airport Police Operations Center. At one point, the police report said, Craig handed the arresting officer a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said "What do you think about that?"

Craig denied any lewd intentions and told police he has a "wide stance" in the bathroom and reached down to pick up a piece of paper from the floor.

"It should be noted that there was not a piece of paper on the bathroom floor, nor did Craig pick up a piece of paper," Karsnia wrote in the report.

Am I missing something here? Its illegal to tap your foot in a mens room stall??

Color me naive, but I don't see how any of this is actionable by law enforcement...? If it all happened as the officer reported, it seems like a case of "the Senator was clearly up to something dirty, but we can't prove his intent, so let it go".

I mean, as a juror, I'd be hard pressed (does that qualify as a clever double entendre?) to convict someone for lewd conduct based on what I just read in that post.

I wonder if they tried any cases as part of this "sting", it would be a tough case.

Though, it seems like it would take quite an effort to touch feet with the guy in the stall next to you.

And besides, if loving anonymous men's restroom sex is wrong, then I don't wanna be right!

Gay guys have sex in bathrooms? No wonder they have so many diseases...

Damn.

If someone in the stall next to me touched my foot, I would probably be traumatized and never be able to go in public again.

What did you know about propositioning gay sex?

so wait...it's illegal to proposition someone?? wtf? so how does a person go about hooking up with another person?

it's not like he offered to pay the guy or anything. This is just stupid

Hey, this story's not about me.

there are worse thing they could touch

If there was no intent Craig wouldn't have pleaded. There have been rumors about Craig for years, although I never heard that he was into anonymous sex.

btw- Just to creep you out a bit, airports are probably the most used places for anonymous gay sex.

I don't use public bathrooms for anything other then taking a piss. I feel weird when someone tries to talk to me when I am pissing.

Well you know those western libertarian types....

Gay guys will have sex anywhere, with anyone, under pretty much any circumstances.

You know why? Because they're guys.

Seriously, if straight guys thought there was even the slighest chance that they could get anonymous sex by tapping their foot next to a woman, every shopping mall in America would look like the encore from Riverdance.

do we have any openly gay guys on this forum?

I was just thinking the same thing - I don't remember any.

I don't think so. I believe one semi-prominent member had said they identified as bi, but were currently in a relationship with a woman.

I've thought about asking that before, but figured it wasn't my place to do so.

In a public bathroom? Yuck.

Yup. tapping the foot of the person next to you in the bathroom is a sign of someone wanting to engage in sex.

It's pretty well known that rest stops along major highways are places for this to occur.

I believe there is one and he is a lawyer.

I don't see how you can "catch" anything while engaging in any type of sex that you couldn't get by using the bathroom for what it's intended for.

Hey. :mad:



:)

i'm not getting how this is anything illegal though. unless you're going to charge them under like "attempted sodomy" or something. Otherwise isn't it just two consenting adults? no $$ changing hands, no physical proof that anything was going to occur in the bathroom. The senator could just say "yeah I wanted to pick him up and take him to a hotel room."

I guess the element of intent is placing all the luggage in such a way that it blocks the view of the stall he was in. But that's very thin.

I'm guessing most people caught up in this just take the disorderly conduct conviction (which amounts to a fine), rather than fight it. Especially someone in the position of a republican senator from Idaho affiliated with a Mormon candidate's presidential campaign.

I think lewd conduct (or attempted lewd conduct) in a public location is the issue. He wasn't tapping the guy's foot to offer to buy him a drink--he made the universal sign to request dirty bathroom nookie from a stranger.

Note to self: next time you're having trouble crapping, don't tap your foot anxiously.

As it turns out, I happen to be one of those due to my location just to the north of you. Hence the joke. ;)

The idea of any type of sex in a public restroom is just NASTY...I've been in some bathrooms so filthy that I didn't even want to stay in it to take a piss. I realize airport bathrooms are nicer than your run-of-the-mill roadside stops, but still...yuck.

QFT

That does seem pretty weak.

If the undercover officer were a woman, and the Senator came up to her in a bar and bought her a drink and made "a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct," I don't think that you would have an arrest at that point.

The idea that you can go from a signal saying "Hey, let's have sex" to "This guy was attempting to have sex in public" seems like a major stretch.

If you're trying to say that you can't understand how a guy could get it up when there's shit on the walls, I'll agree with you. I was just commenting on the health aspect of it. Once my piece comes out of my pants, it's exposed to all the same elements whether I'm about to take a leak or about to get a hummer.

FROM A CHICK.

Rumor was in Chicago that Marshall Fields (RIP) was the place to get gay sex in the bathroom. Supposedly the toyboy... SPOILER ALERT!!! ... STOP READING IF YOU'RE SQUEEMISH... would kneel in a very large Marshall Fields shopping bag to hide his pressence.

According to the Idaho Statesman a man claims Craig had sex with him in a restroom at Union Station. Craig pleaded guilty because he knew exactly what he was doing and didn't want that to get out.

As much as I think the guy is a hypocrite, I also feel sorry for him. Living in the closet can destroy an individual and in this case, like Foley before him, the inability to express his sexuality led him to make incredibly reckless decisions.

.

that's exactly the point i was trying to make earlier, just expressed much more clearly. thanks albion.

Well I posted those lyrics so people don't stop believing that race doesn't play apart in the vick thread. I have nothing against gays but I don't play on or near that side of the field.

I get a bizarre feeling from this thread for some reason.

A former chairman of the MARTA board (Atlanta's mass transit authority) was caught having gay sex in the bathroom of the atlanta airport maybe six months ago. It was even worse for him, because the guy he was doing it with had flown in from somewhere else and was going to fly out that day, implying, of course, a paid sex type situation.

So he paid $300+ for a flight but not $50 for a hotel room?

There's "something" about airport bathrooms that we're not getting the allure of.

It's gotta be the musky aroma.

wtf

If you think I'm clicking random links in this thread, you're crazy.

it's a reinactment brought to you by some news team.

the best part is the woman holding the divider.

wtf, so the divider woman hasn't used a stall before?

And that guy is wearing black dress pants with brown sandals. That's some kind of fashion crisis I think. He can't be gay.

yeah, you catch that "I never..." then she cut herself short. What, never was in a stall before?

That's exactly what I was talking about. Do women's washrooms everywhere have dividers that go all the way to the ground?

we might have to consult the Stalls thread

the better question is if the foot tapping is generally practiced in the lesbian world

Hmm... maybe another question to pose in the Stalls thread.

I'm with the majority here - what exactly did this guy do that should be deemed illegal? There doesn't seem to be any indication that the officer was portraying himself as a prostitute. Is Minneapolis so homophobic that propositioning another man is a crime?


Tended to arouse alarm or resentment? Seriously? By that reasoning any attractive woman in a provocative outfit should be arrested, because it would be "alarming" to any hetero guy and cause resentment in those guys' wives or girlfriends.

If somebody started doing that mating call in the next stall, I would be annoyed and such, but I don't really think that the fact that I'm annoyed should mean that this guy gets arrested. It's not like the guy flashed his dick and licked his lips while tweaking his left nipple.

I think you have to look at this from the other side, too.

Obviously, gay sex in the Minneapolis airport bathroom has been a big problem, if they're utilizing undercover detectives to hang out in stalls.

So what's the solution? Wait for gay sex to happen and then bust 'em? Not ideal. They clearly did their homework and are waiting for a number of elements to take place before they arrest and charge (with a broad misdemeanor statute that covers a lot of ground, doesn't make you register as sex offender, and really doesn't look too bad on your record):

1. Conceal view of feet with luggage
2. Stare at person in next stall
3. Tap feet
4. Move feet to where they're actually touching other person

And maybe other stuff that's not in the article. Individually, none of this amounts to anything, but together, it's a guy trying to get laid in the stall. They could give him a friendly warning at that point, or charge him with a low-level misdemeanor that amounts to a fine. By going the charging route, they're at least recouping some of the costs of the investigation, which I think most of us can agree, is worthwhile.

Wait, so how long did the cop sit at the stall before he was finally approached? That job would have to suck, sitting on a toilet 8 hours a day so hopefully someone would approach you for gay sex. The things he must have smelled...

This was just released - a photograph taken by the undercover detective:

Maybe it's not "ideal", but it's the only fair way of dealing with this issue. Because otherwise it's arresting someone on the suspicion of what they might eventually do, and that's just a little too Orwellian Thought Police-ish.

IMO, crime prevention is at least equally as important in the criminal justice system as punishing someone after the fact. Criminal statutes and prosecutorial strategies have evolved to better facilitate this, but we're nowhere near punishing anyone's thoughts - actions are still always required. But we're less and less content to tell someone "hey, nothing we can do until he actually beats the crap out of you or kills you", etc. (Not saying this is as serious as that, just giving an example). But imagine if your young son was in a stall, and there was gay sex going on in the stall next door. Most people would be pissed off, wondering what the hell the police were doing to prevent that.

It's pretty sad though that the real emphasis of his press conference, at least here in Idaho, was the denials of his homosexuality. THAT seems to be the big sin here. I was in a room with a bunch of Idaho cops at work today, and they were all looking at his picture in the paper, which the same comment "he doesn't look gay".

And yet what was he busted for? Some actions that were supposedly signals that Craig was soliciting for sex? Even if that's what Craig was doing, how does anyone know if he was intending to have sex in that bathroom stall? If not, who the fuck cares if he was soliciting for sex?

That's my issue with arresting him - he was busted for making some gestures, not for actually engaging in anything disruptive. Your comparison to situations of assault or murder are poor ones in this case - if the crime they're trying to prevent is public sex (and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they're targeting any public sex, not just gay male public sex), then yes, they need to wait until it's actually happening, or at the very least until the suspects are in a much more obvious state of what's about to happen (i.e. they're both in the same stall and removing clothing). Bothering someone's sensibilities (which is what this prevention of public sex is about) is something much less serious than physical assault.

I dunno why but the wording of this just made me laugh :D

SI

That quote above is the first thing that I've seen that makes me think there might be more to this story. I'm pretty sure the cops aren't putting "engaged in physical conduct" in a report to describe an innocent little gesture that could easily be misconstrued.

SI

Well, that's the thing isn't it? Nothing else that's been reported from this story (including all of the info repeated from the police report) indicates there was anything more than this supposed signaling that Craig did.

The fact that he pleaded guilty tells me everything I need to know. You don't just fucking plead guilty to shit, if you new the gestures weren't intended to be something serious.

So I don't want to hear that he was "rushed" into a guilty plea. You're a US Senator. He knows exactly what he was doing, he got caught and just wants to brush it under the rug, he won't run for re-election next year and hopes his actions don't hurt the party in-state too much.

I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt pretty far until I read the details in this story.
http://apnews.myway.com//article/200...D8RAF71O1.html

See, I can believe that
-- the bag in front of the stall door was just a random thing
-- the foot tapping was just a nervous habit
-- the foot touching thing was just accidental, clumsy, or something innocent

But this part is where he lost me

I'm forty years old and not once in my life has my hand passed under a stall divider. Hell, for all I know you break an invisible beam & lasers blow your hand off if you reach under there. I'm just struggling to find any reasonable explanation for that part of it. Even if he dropped a wad of money big enough to choke a horse, he's not groping under the stall, he gets his unwiped ass off the can & makes sure his anonymous neighbor doesn't hightail it out of there with his cash.

Sorry Senator, but plausible deniability just isn't there at this point.

So he knew he was propositioning for sex - BFD. Until he's literally moments away from engaging in public sex (i.e. not in a separate stall) I don't see where his action is something worthy of arresting him for. Why not arrest every "playa" in the meat-market bars propositioning women? I mean, some of those propositions might lead to public sex, right?

Unless there is more to this story, I just don't see where there was enough justification for his arrest.

I agree - I have no doubts he was propositioning. But I don't see how that alone is worthy of him being arrested.

I get that. But that's my point. Why wouldn't a lawyer fight this? Why would he just plead guilty? Everyone that talked about it today, pretty much said the same thing. That they didn't think it was enough to arrest him and they're all paranoid now.

But...that's what I'm saying. If it was an isolated incident, then no way he just gives in and pleads guilty.

But they proved their point when he's pleading guilty and would rather kill this story rather than letting it sit out there and instead plays the "I've been railroaded card." I thought it was a smart move by whoever is advising him to tell him to get it out of the media, because it's not like he'd have to resign...and it's easier to get it done with and say "I didn't do anything wrong" than to actually face the charges.

That seems pretty simple: because he violated two different statutes according to his plea.
http://media.idahostatesman.com/smed...filiate.36.pdf

The disorderly conduct charge seems pretty cut & dried.
http://ros.leg.mn/bin/getpub.php?pub...section=609.72
"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."

Someone trying to pick me up while I'm hypothetically taking a dump seems likely to "arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others".

Now the second charge is the one that had me scratching my head at first after reading the story & then the statute at
http://ros.leg.mn/bin/getpub.php?pub...ection=609.746


After reading the original incident report, it looks like he was charged under this one for looking through the crack in the stall at the undercover cop. Since there's no indication that Craig had to do anything out of the ordinary to see into the next stall, I think this might have been a more questionable charge ... but then again he did plead guilty to it.

Looks to me as though the first charge is what he was arrested for, while the second one was tacked on as a bit of piling on.

It's like the hunting v. dog fighting debate all over again.

You're describing two completely different things. The issue isn't that someone's actions "might lead to public sex". The crime is actually soliciting public sex. That's quite a difference.

A case like this, if it went to trial, would consist of more than the newspaper article blurb. There would be expert testimony about how such trysts are typically arranged, info on the senator's flight schedule (so we could see whether a hotel was even an option), his statements about picking up a piece of paper (and the fact that there wasn't a piece of paper, and that he couldn't produce said paper later). Potentially, the state could even introduce evidence of prior public bathroom sex that he took part in, to show proof of intent (this might be the real reason he plead guilty)

Not a slam dunk case, but a jury would convict. I mean, what do you think he was doing?

I thought I saw a clip on the news tonight about the second charge being dismissed in exchange for the guilty plea on the first charge.

I agree that it was "piling on", done exactly for this purpose of reaching a resolution.

I find myself agreeing with JIMGA here, which feels odd, but there you go.

Another thing I think people haven't considered is that I suspect the MN police aren't trying so much to arrest people as to dissuade them from using the bathrooms at the airport for sex. I can see the strategy here being that you catch a few guys for soliciting, get them to plead guilty for misdemeanors, and sooner or later the word gets out and people don't view these spots as good places to pick up men anymore.

I find it amusing that people think a senator was railroaded and can't understand why people think Vick was. I assume they are both guilty, considering they both admitted to being guilty in a court of law. They both have enough money and power that they could put up a good defense if they were innocent. Now, I don't really understand what was so illegal about this case, but apparently it was.

Some discussion here: http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2...tml#1188338033

You're missing my point then - how can we be sure that Craig's actions were definitely going to lead to public sex? That's my issue with all of this, that there was a pretty significant assumption being made in this case.

I think he was soliciting for sex. But I can't know for sure whether he intended to engage in sex in one of those stalls, or somewhere else in public.

Let's keep in mind here that we are all relying on the supposed expertise of this officer regarding the "signals" that Craig was giving. The officer probably does know what he's talking about, but given that all of the communication in this incident was non-verbal, I think a prosecutor would have a hard time convicting if Craig had a decent lawyer. I mean, c'mon - where he placed his luggage, a series of foot movements, peeking through the cracks in the stalls - that's hardly as definitive as someone saying "Hey, you wanna come over to my stall and fuck?"

Whether or not Craig actually had time based on his flight booking to go to a hotel is irrelevant - from what we know of the officer's report, the officer had no way of knowing that information. And the Senator's past actions are only relevant if the officer knew who he was targeting.

I understand that public sex in the Minneapolis Airport bathrooms has been a problem, and that the cops are trying to address this by arresting those who are soliciting. My issue here is that there is a significant assumption was made at the point at which Craig was arrested, and that is that Craig was definitely intending to have sex in one of those stalls. At the very least, they needed to both be in the same stall before there was justification to arrest Craig, otherwise he was arrested for publicly soliciting sex and not soliciting for public sex.

I get what they are doing - I just think that they need more proof of intent than appears to be the case with Senator Craig, otherwise it just feels like a targeted attack on gay male sexual solicitation. I don't have a problem prosecuting for public sex. I do have a problem with prosecuting for public solicitation of sex.

Thanks - this guy does a great job of articulating my point of view:

I don't get how you have sex in a stall? Wouldn't the four legs and noise kind of give that away. Or is someone going to be holding themselves up by the stall's walls, or maybe kneeling on the seat?

Aha! So the cop wanted sex, but maybe the guy saw him and didn't like what he saw, so then backed out of the sex before it happened. And now the cop is angry and wants to arrest him.

I don't know what was going through Craig's head when he pleaded guilty, but here's a plausible theory:

He's a closeted gay man who figures his career and his marriage would be toast if this incident came to light. In his daze of shame and panic, he figures that fighting this charge would unquestionably bring the incident into public knowledge, and knowing that while he might win the case, he would also be viewed by nearly everyone as a closeted gay man. Whereas if he just pleads guilty and pays the fine, he thinks there's a chance that this would escape public notice.

See, that's my whole point - why was what he did considered illegal? Or more accurately (since as JiMGa points out, the statute under which he was charged is broadly applicable and vaguely worded) why was his particular action prosecuted?

I think this is exactly what happened. Had he been thinking clearly, he may have realized that as a U.S. Senator, there's no way this ever doesn't make it into the public space, but given that he was soliciting for sex in public anyway, I think it's safe to assume he wasn't thinking clearly from the beginning.

I agree that this setup by the police is splitting very fine hairs, legally, but they're probably thinking that the ends justify the means. I'm inclined to add a couple more mitigations to their setup:

1. Let's be honest, who solicits for sex (straight or gay) in airport public bathrooms? I'm not sure the "well, he could have taken him to a hotel room" argument really flies, either. In all likelihood, someone soliciting for sex in this manner is looking for a quick handjob/blowjob. Now, if Craig was making a pass at a guy at an airport bar, it's a completely different story, and the police would be way out of line there.

2. In this day and age, I can definitely see a scenario where an openly gay man could take this to court and win on the "I was going to ask him if he wanted to go back to a hotel room" defense. However, knowing several openly gay men, I'm not inclined to believe they'd approach someone in this manner. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of openly gay men (as opposed to closet cases like Craig) do not prefer to have sex in public restrooms (restrooms in nightclubs excepted, but then those are excepted for pretty much everyone).

We know that his actions definitely weren't going to lead to public sex, because he was talking to a detective. My point was it's irrelevant anyway - the crime isn't public sex, it's soliciting public sex. The crime is completed when he solicits the sex. (so impossibility of carrying out the act isn't a bar to a crime like this) If you disagree that should be illegal, then fine.


The beyond a reasonable doubt standard for a jury trial isn't anything close to "100% sure". The probable cause for arrest is FAR lower. It's a circumstantial case, some juries would shit on it, but it can be tried with a straight face.


It would be interesting case, no doubt. Not impossible for the prosecution though.


It's the defendant's intent that matters, not the witnesses. The officer could have been a civilian who wasn't even involved with the sting, and knew nothing about what was going on, or what those signs meant. If he could later testify about what he saw, a case could possibily be built.


Obviously, they don't want things to get to that point. The law allows the them to charge and arrest before then, so I agree with their decision to do so. A jury trial would be crapshoot, but I doubt many of these cases would get that far.

I'm not necessarily saying that action shouldn't be illegal - I'm saying that I find it difficult to prove that the actions of Senator Craig in this case were clearly "soliciting public sex". Soliciting sex, yes, with very little doubt.

But your earlier contention was that Craig's flight plan and past sexual practices could be brought up as circumstantial evidence, and I'm saying I think they are irrelevant. The officer arrested Craig on the assumption he was being solicited by Craig for public sex. The only info the officer had was the non-verbal communication that occurred. From what we know from the police report, the officer had no way of knowing Craig's flight booking, and he didn't appear to know who Craig was ahead of time, so the only relevant evidence in this case is what occurred in that bathroom.

I don't find it at all unreasonable for the bar to be that the officer has to enter the stall of the target, with the target obviously acting like he's expecting some kind of sex to occur before an arrest is made. If we disagree on this, so be it. To me, it's an important distinction of intent - I think there's a significant enough assumption being made in the Craig case that it should be challenged. The fact that Craig chose not to at the time I think speaks far more to his attempt as a U.S. Senator to stay closeted than his belief that it was a fair arrest.

Yep.

I guess I fail to see why the police in this case shouldn't take the next logical step in such a case and enter the stall of the target before making the arrest - to me, doing so takes nearly all of the uncertainty out of such a case, and I don't see the downside to taking that step. Either the target says "Hey, whoa, what the fuck are you doing?" or he doesn't; if he doesn't, he gets arrested. Either way, the officer leads the target out of the stall and clearly identifies himself as an officer to any other people there (which also serves a warning to the public). If the target didn't object to the officer entering the stall, he gets arrested. If he did object, the officer states that they are on the lookout for people soliciting for public sex in those bathrooms and warning the target that his actions fit that description.

I don't think we disagree that much. You just see "weak case, shouldn't be charged/prosecuted", and I see "weak case, but it could legally and justly get to a jury with enough work from the prosecutor".

Prior bathroom sex might be relevant under Minnesota's version of Federal Evidence Rule 404(b), where prior "bad acts" can't be admitted to show someone acted in conformance with the prior acts, but they can be admitted for other purposes, including proof of intent. So that might fly here.

Similar deal with the airline times. I would try to admit those to cut out any possibility that he was propositioning hotel sex, but I would expect the defense attorney to fight that as well.

That would be a pretty big problem if the detective was wrong. We're talking lawsuit trouble.

Of course, one could say, "well, if they're not sure, they shouldn't be arresting". But even after the officer takes the guy out the bathroom, there will be a further investigation before anyone's charged (he'll talk to the suspect, etc.).

And yet just the signaling alone that Senator Craig is alleged to have given was enough in your book to arrest and prosecute him. If the signaling alone is worthy of arrest in your book, I don't see how proceeding further with the undercover operation subjects the police department to greater risk of a lawsuit.

Arresting and charging requires probable cause, which is a pretty low standard.

Presence of probable cause, IMO, does not warrant a privacy instusion at the level of barging in one someone in a stall in this type of case. It's just not necessary, since there's no reason to fear destruction of evidence (like if there were drugs inolved) and no reason to fear for officer saftey. The detective can just knock and tell him to get out.

And that's without even accounting for the potential debacle of a "false charge" into a stall with an innocent person.

So ya, I'd be willing to investigate further based on the signals, but that's only the start of the investigation - you're also going to talk to guy and see whatever evidence you can find at the scene (condoms out, whatever). So I wouldn't be barging into anyone's stalls - guilty or innocent.

No one said anything about barging in. We're talking about taking a step toward accepting the alleged invitation. At best, the evidence may suggest that Craig wanted to have sex, there is no indication of that being true, much less that he wanted to do it right there.

I'm not saying the officer should barge in - I'm saying he should continue to pursue the situation to confirm the suspicion generated by the non-verbal signals, and that can be accomplished by tapping on the stall door. Tapping on the stall door and having the suspect invite him in is clearly an indication that the officer's suspicions were correct. If the officer is wrong and the suspect doesn't immediately offer for him to enter, than the officer has a decision to make - did he already have enough evidence through the non-verbal signals to make an arrest or not?

I don't see how we're going to come to an agreement on this - to me, the non-verbal signals aren't enough to warrant an arrest, as there's not enough proof IMO that public sex is about to take place based off the signals. I believe the officer needs to take another step in the process to confirm the intentions, and that such a step carries no downside.

Above you said "enter", and that was what I was responding to, but if you just meant "tap on the door and wait for invitation" as above, then ya, I agree with that. (I still don't think you NEED that to arrest, but it sure as hell makes the case stronger, and like you said, there's no reason not to do it).

Edit: On the other hand, the detectives might have reason not to tap if the typical way these things goes down doesn't involve that. Let's say their info is that one person taps, the other person taps, they touch feet for five seconds, and then one just goes in the other stall, with no tap. That'd be pretty foolproof unless you had aggressive detectives doing what they did in MN.

Maybe I'm missing something in your argument here, or maybe I'm splitting too fine a hair on the wording of the statute he was charged under, but here goes anyway.

While the story revolves around the sex aspect of this, and even the investigation & subsequent charges are connected to the sex aspect there's really no mention of sex, public or otherwise, in the actual statute.

The disorderly charge basically requires some action that would tend to "to arouse alarm, anger, or resentment in others.". The second charge, interference with privacy, has to do with looking into a private location "has exposed or is likely to expose their intimate parts ... or the clothing covering the immediate area of the intimate parts".

The way the disorderly statue reads, there's nothing that requires intent for public sex to be an element of the crime. It might be argued reasonably that the charge fails to meet an initial criteria "knowing, or having reasonable grounds to know that it will, or will tend to" cause upset to someone else. But there's really no requirement for the accused to have had any intention or desire for public sex for the charge to be valid.

On the second charge (which I guess we've decided was dimissed even though it's in his plea agreement?) there's nothing about sex either, just about looking into an area where someone is likely to have exposed their saucy and/or naughty bits.

Agreed, but before anybody says that statute would cover a million things people do every day, it's important to point out that the statute is still limited by the Consitution or caselaw. An seemingly innocent act that may otherwise appear to fit under the statute may very well be excluded by a prior court's decision. On the other hand, I'm sure there's some acts that are well established in the courts as falling under the statute (I'm guessing this innocent is one of them).

dawgfan - soliciting does not mean what you think it means.

I'm not disputing the wording of the ordinance, just saying it's worded in a very broad manner and that I find it upsetting that the police in Minneapolis appear to be using that statute to pursue arrests for just publicly soliciting sex, if that is indeed all that they were arresting Senator Craig for. I can see justification for pursuing those soliciting for public sex, but simply publicly soliciting for sex is dubious, because then you have a situation where a division of society can claim that they are being unfairly targeted.

Dola - and if they are arresting him for just being a public pest and not for soliciting sex, then that's even more dubious IMO.

Stick up for those hookers!

Oh really? Tell me what I think it means then?