Massachusetts public drinking laws

[Jimmy]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/07/08/lawsuit_asserts_right_to_get_drunk_on_private_property/
says the Massachusetts law against public drunkenness was repealed in
1971. It was replaced by a protective custody law, which says police
can put drunk people in jail for a few hours to protect them, but no
criminal charges are involved. How does this work in practice?

As far as I can tell, there's no state law against consumption of
alcohol on public property, just a collection of city and town laws.
(There is a regulation about drinking in state parks.) So are there
any municipalities that would allow you to have a glass of wine with a
picnic in a public park?

Jimmy

[David Chesler]

Post by Jimmy
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/07/08/lawsuit_asserts_right_to_get_drunk_on_private_property/
says the Massachusetts law against public drunkenness was repealed in
1971.

I asked about that lawsuit in this froup on May 5, 2008:

Subject: WEHT Private Intoxication, Laverriere lawsuit against Waltham,
any followup?

Early on New Year's Day 2005, Eric Laverriere was arrested for public
intoxication for videotaping police breaking up the party he was
attending in Waltham. (The police say that an arrest for public
intoxication is not an arrest, that it's just protective custody.)
In a lawsuit filed in July of that year, Laverriere's attorney Harvey
Schwartz apparently did not argue that an arrest is an arrest even if
isn't called an arrest by the police, but he did argue that because
the Protective Custody law in 1971 replaced an earlier law that made
public drunkeness a crime, it implicitly applied to public
intoxication, not to people who were drunk in private.
What ever happened to that lawsuit?



I never heard back and would be interested to know what came of it.
I'm still not sure how calling it protective custody doesn't make it an
arrest, just like I'm not sure how calling it civil commitment doesn't
make it imprisonment.

[Jimmy]

Post by David Chesler
What ever happened to that lawsuit?
I never heard back and would be interested to know what came of it.
I'm still not sure how calling it protective custody doesn't make it an
arrest, just like I'm not sure how calling it civil commitment doesn't
make it imprisonment.

Well, for one thing, you're not supposed to be charged with a crime.

I googled and found an abstract in a public health journal that said
the intent of this law was to handle drunkenness in the health care
system rather than in the criminal justice system, but that in effect
not much has changed.

Is there an easy way for regular people to look up the results of a
court case?

Jimmy