SHOULD SEN. LARRY CRAIG RESIGN?

a real man could have held his poop until he got home.

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This is all moot as Craig pled guilty.

It is tragic that closeted gay men resort to this conduct and even more tragic that they have their lives destroyed by it. The issue isn't the technicality of the law. It is obvious what his intentions were.

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Lest we forget, Craig exited the stall without flushing the toilet.

It seems he also exited without wiping. So what was he doing there?

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stage fright?

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Roxxxanne wrote:

This is all moot as Craig pled guilty.

Why does that make it moot? Can't he change his plea?

Roxxxanne wrote:

It is obvious what his intentions were.

How is it obvious? It isn't obvious from the police officer's say-so. It isn't obvious from the tape. It isn't obvious from Craig's guilty plea, as Debra convincingly argued. Do you have sources of information that we don't have?

parados wrote:

Lest we forget, Craig exited the stall without flushing the toilet.

It seems he also exited without wiping. So what was he doing there?

... says the police officer, whose testimony may or may not be truthful. Assuming that it is, maybe Craig was soliciting sex without urinating or defecating. Maybe he was freaked out by the paper sheet saying "POLICE" being shoved into his stall. The point is, we don't know.

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Thomas wrote:

Roxxxanne wrote:
This is all moot as Craig pled guilty.

Why does that make it moot? Can't he change his plea?

Roxxxanne wrote:
It is obvious what his intentions were.

How is it obvious? It isn't obvious from the police officer's say-so. It isn't obvious from the tape. It isn't obvious from Craig's guilty plea, as Debra convincingly argued. Do you have sources of information that we don't have?

parados wrote:
Lest we forget, Craig exited the stall without flushing the toilet.

It seems he also exited without wiping. So what was he doing there?

... says the police officer, whose testimony may or may not be truthful. Assuming that it is, maybe Craig was soliciting sex without urinating or defecating. Maybe he was freaked out by the paper sheet saying "POLICE" being shoved into his stall. The point is, we don't know.

No, he can't change his plea, to the best of my knowledge.

Listen, the fact that it would have been embarassing or politically difficult for him to plead Not Guilty is completely immaterial. If he didn't feel that he was guilty of what he was charged with, then he should have plead that way. He didn't, and therefore the law is quite clear: he did do the things he was accused of. He affirmed in a court of law that he did.

I'm not sure where the confusion rises from here. We have a process for judging if an arrest is good, or if an operation is actually catching the right person - it's called Court. He plead guilty in court. End of story.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I'm not sure where the confusion rises from here. We have a process for judging if an arrest is good, or if an operation is actually catching the right person - it's called Court. He plead guilty in court. End of story.

It's only the end of the story if the process always works -- and it doesn't. In particular, it doesn't reliably work if police intimidate the accused to give the testimony they want to hear.

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I'm not sure where the confusion rises from here. We have a process for judging if an arrest is good, or if an operation is actually catching the right person - it's called Court. He plead guilty in court. End of story.

It's only the end of the story if the process always works -- and it doesn't.

I'm not sure what the evidence is that the process didn't work.

Craig was caught engaging in 'trolling' behavior - and let's not kid ourselves, that's what staring into someone's stall in the bathroom, touching their foot with yours, and making hand motions to them under the stall, is - and pled guilty in court to the crime he was charged with.

I repeat again, the fact that it would have been inconvenient for him to have to defend himself is immaterial. The law doesn't give a damn if things are inconvenient, and it shouldn't.

Cycloptichorn

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Thomas wrote:

Roxxxanne wrote:
This is all moot as Craig pled guilty.

Why does that make it moot? Can't he change his plea?

It's rather hard to revoke a plea after the court has accepted it and you have paid the fine. Craig would have to show he was somehow coerced into pleading guilty which I don't think courts will find reasonable from a US Senator who surely knows several lawyers.

Here is a story on the officer
http://www.startribune.com/587/story/1393841.html

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Blaming a newspaper for his decision to plead guilty was where I lost my ability to have sympathy, or patience, with the man.

It's a shame that somewhere in the past 40 years, he hasn't been able to come to terms with himself.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Craig was caught engaging in 'trolling' behavior

... says the police officer, who may or may not be telling the truth.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

and pled guilty in court to the crime he was charged with.

After the ever-so-friendly police officer hinted ever-so-discreetly that a not-guilty plea would result in lots of unwelcome publicity.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

I repeat again, the fact that it would have been inconvenient for him to have to defend himself is immaterial. The law doesn't give a damn if things are inconvenient, and it shouldn't.

Although I'm not a lawyer, I am pretty sure that the law does care about police officers bullying the accused into making false confessions. The tape is consistent with the hypothesis that this is what happened in this case.

But even in the unlikely event that the law doesn't care, I still do. And I'm here to argue on what I care about, not what the law cares about.

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Craig was caught engaging in 'trolling' behavior

... says the police officer, who may or may not be telling the truth.

Cycloptichorn wrote:
and pled guilty in court to the crime he was charged with.

After the ever-so-friendly police officer pointed out to him that a not-guilty plea would result in lots of unwelcome publicity.

Cycloptichorn wrote:
I repeat again, the fact that it would have been inconvenient for him to have to defend himself is immaterial. The law doesn't give a damn if things are inconvenient, and it shouldn't.

Although I'm not a lawyer, I am pretty sure that the law does care about police officers intimidating the accused into making false confessions. The tape is consistent with the hypothesis that this is what happened in this case.

But even in the unlikely event that the law doesn't care, I still do. And I'm here to argue what I care about, and not what the law cares about.

But, there's no actual evidence that anyone was coerced into anything. There's no difference between the officer talking to Craig and the officer talking to any other crook, who claims they are innocent.

You are aware, of course, that pretty much everyone who gets caught breaking the law, claims that they are in fact innocent when questioned on it? There's not much evidence on Craig's side other then his account of events. And that's fine - he could have challenged in court the evidence presented by the gov't agent. He chose not to do so, in an attempt to keep the whole thing quiet. That was a mistake on his part.

Remember that he had a debriefing with the officer, and then plead guilty - two months later. He had ample time to review what had happened, to retain counsel, and put together a strong case that he didn't do anything wrong. He chose not to do any of these things, and affirmed in a court of law that he was in fact guilty of his crimes. I haven't seen any persuasive evidence that he in face was 'coerced' into doing so. In fact, during the interview in question, Craig did not confess in the slightest.

Can you imagine this scene in court?

Judge: why should we revoke your guilty plea and conviction?

Craig: well, the cop spoke awful rough to me after the arrest, and made me scared that this would leak nationally. So I was forced to plead guilty two months later in order to try and avoid this. Really, I'm just a victim of entrapment, your Honor - I was scared!

---

Ridiculous. the officer broke no law and wasn't even really intimidating in the slightest. And I completely understand why he would have been upset; Craig was sitting there lying to him over and over, according to the officer's testimony. I would be angry as well.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

But, there's no actual evidence that anyone was coerced into anything.

Have you listened to the tape?

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Thanks for the link parados. No pictures of Karsnia but as I said, I suspect he is an attractive man. Entrapment would have been the only way out and the Senator mentioned it, ignoring the fact that there was no evidence of entrapment. If the officer had entered the bathroom and was eyeing and flirting with Senator Craig, the Senator didn't mention it. There could have been eye contact or, I don't think we know if Senator Craig saw the officer before he entered a stall. Perhaps Karsnia noticed just the opposite, that the Senator was eyeing him. It's pretty hard to not notice if someone is undressing you with their eyes -- it's that quick up-and-down look and not necessarily pausing at the groin area (however, often that is done even involuntarily). Karsnia makes many arrests in that bathroom so it could be a notorious meeting place for gays even if the Senator didn't know it. George Michael knew that restroom was a cruising venue -- it's on a gay beach!

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
But, there's no actual evidence that anyone was coerced into anything.

Have you listened to the tape?

Yes, have you?

Did you expect the arresting officer to give him a plate of tea and scones? He got caught committing a crime. It's not the most convivial situation.

Frankly, he was treated with more deference and respect then the vast majority of people who are arrested, as far as I can tell, through personal experience and my studies of the subject.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

He got caught committing a crime.

(1) You continue to take for granted that the police officer is truthful. You have no evidence for or against this assumption, so why are you taking it for granted?

(2) Debra looked up the Minnesota law code. She found no evidence that soliciting sex is a crime in this state. You confidently assert that Craig did break the law. Can you cite for me the Minnessota statute that Craig allegedly broke?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Frankly, he was treated with more deference and respect then the vast majority of people who are arrested, as far as I can tell, through personal experience and my studies of the subject.

I can easily believe that. As Tom Wolfe said, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. Wink

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I agree, Cyclo -- the officer was rebutting the version of the Senator's actions. He didn't coerce him to slip his foot under the stall to touch his. He didn't coerce him to make the hand motion under the stall wall which is an well know international signal that you're offering sex. The Senator should have probably told the officer he would not do the interview without an attorney present but he ended up trying to cover it up by pleading guilty to a lesser charge. That doesn't do away with the police report. Again, is it me, or is this juvenile ignorance of the law? No wonder the officer made the statement referring to why this country's government is in such a bad state.
The Senator's answers and retorts in the interview just made evoked a snickering laugh -- yeah, right, buddy. Got your hand caught in the cookie jar (wrong kind of cookie!) -- you're just lucky it didn't get caught unzipping a fly or there wouldn't have even been a plea offer.

Personally, I think it should be clearer in their law about that. In California you can't even be asked, "Well, what do you want to do?" by the officer.

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Thomas wrote:

(2) Debra looked up the Minnesota law code. She found no evidence that soliciting sex is a crime in this state.

Since that wasn't the charge, that fine effort was meaningless.

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
He got caught committing a crime.

(1) You continue to take for granted that the police officer is truthful. You have no evidence for or against this assumption, so why are you taking it for granted?

(2) Debra looked up the Minnesota law code. She found no evidence that soliciting sex is a crime in this state. You confidently assert that Craig did break the law. Can you cite for me the Minnessota statute that Craig allegedly broke?

No, I can't, but I'm not a lawyer and I don't feel like looking it up.

Let's be clear though - there's no allegedly to it. He did break the law. He pled guilty in court to doing so. By definition, he broke the law. Your argument is akin to the argument that Lewis Libby supporters made, saying that he allegedly broke the law, even though he was found guilty and convicted of doing so.

The very act of his guilty plea removes his ability to claim that he didn't break the law. If he was innocent, he should have pled innocent. He did not, ergo, he was guilty. I agree that there have been cases in which people were coerced into writing confessions, etc., that they shouldn't have; the Senator was not coerced in this way. He didn't sign a confession or even admit to doing anything wrong, until months later in court.

I take the police officer's word for granted, as he has no compelling reason to lie. He didn't know Craig was a senator, and he didn't 'entrap' him into doing anything. Craig, on the other hand, has every reason to lie. Occam's razor.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Frankly, he was treated with more deference and respect then the vast majority of people who are arrested, as far as I can tell, through personal experience and my studies of the subject.

I can easily believe that. As Tom Wolfe said, a liberal is a conservative who's been arrested. Wink

[/quote]

True enough!

Cycloptichorn

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Lightwizard wrote:

Thanks for the link parados. No pictures of Karsnia but as I said, I suspect he is an attractive man.

I saw a picture of him somewhere. It may have been local TV. He's athletic, clean cut, very blonde.

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SHOULD SEN. LARRY CRAIG RESIGN?

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