Bizarre, Antiquated Laws

Part II: Why Use Them?

Why Officers Bother

Cases when officers enforce antiquated laws appear to often involve multiple infractions. One such case occurred in 2017, when Damian Romano was arrested in Utah. Police found him in possession of heroin and methamphetamine in addition to stolen electronics. Appropriate charges were filed.

However, Romano was also charged with fornication and adultery. The arrest occurred after he was pulled over, and he had a female passenger at the time; he told police that he had intercourse with her the night before. It isn’t clear why the cops decided to add a such an old charge when they already had Romano nailed down for multiple serious infractions.
 
In other instances, it appears that law enforcement uses old laws to nab people who they want to arrest, but are struggling to find a reason to do so. During the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations, for instance, New York police dredged up an 1845 law prohibiting disguises in order to arrest protesters wearing bandanas and Guy Fawkes masks. The law was initially intended to discourage tenant farmer uprisings. A similar law was invoked to arrest counter protesters against the KKK in 2018 in Georgia; ironically, that law had been instated to combat the white hoods of the KKK itself.
  
Finally, and perhaps the most controversially, old laws are sometimes unearthed as a means of discrimination. This happened to Charlon Green of Georgia, who, when 20, partied and had sex with a 16-year-old boy in a hotel room. Since 16 was the age of consent, Green could not be charged with statutory rape. Instead, he was arrested using a law forbidding anal and oral sex.

Green was convicted of not only providing alcohol to a minor, but also sodomy and failure to register as a sex offender. Despite years of fighting the conviction and the legalization of gay marriage, the conviction has yet to be overturned.

A Means to and End
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Law enforcement sometimes used outdated laws to arrest people they feel are disturbing the peace or otherwise infringing upon what’s right. Sometimes those people have committed other crimes; other times, not so much. In the case of Timothy Boomer, the man whose we mentioned at the start of this post and who earned himself the nickname “cussing canoist,” his case turned out OK—the American Civil Liberties Union intervened and the law was reversed. But what should happen if you find yourself on trial for a law that should have been removed decades or even centuries ago? Find out in our next post.
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