Mr. M's Blog: Wall Street Journal--I did not know I was commiting a crime--true that.

Mr. Misdemeanor Blog by Royce Brent Bishop, Esq. (305) 290-4263 royce@mrmisdemeanor.com

Mr. Misdemeanor is dedicated to the defense of felonies, misdemeanors, speeding tickets, traffic tickets, domestic violence, civil infractions, foreclosure defense, and other offenses relating to county, municipal, or local ordinances.

Home page for Mr. Misdemeanor, Royce Brent Bishop

Wall Street Journal--I did not know I was commiting a crime--true that.

In 1952 U.S. Supreme Court Justice Holmes, said, ""Even a dog distinguishes between being stumbled over and being kicked." Justice Holmes was a briliant legal mind, but a very practical person. He was talking about punishing people who did not have mens rea or a "guilty mind". He was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Theeodore "Teddy" Roosevelt. The quote can be found in footnote 9 of Morissette v. United States (1952). Morissette v. United States

Enter the guilty plea of Lawrence Lewis 60 years later.

60 year old Lawrence Lewis convicted of Federal Misdemeanor under the Clean Water Act.
Story from Wall Street Journal

I'm a tree-hugger and studied Natural Resource Conservation as an undergraduate student at the University of Kentucky and thought I believe in strict environmental regulation, I even think this is sad.

Basically, Mr. Lewis plead guilty to diverting sewage AWAY from a retirement home for military officers and into local Rock Creek that feeds into the Potomac River. Mr. Lewis as chief engineer of his department at the Knollwood Retirement Home. Lewis and other employees thought that the sewage drain they were using would go to a waste-water treatment facility. Knollwood Retirement Home Google Map Knollwood Home on Google Map

I think it is sort of stupid that the drain they were using was never set up by the city to go to a waste-water treatment facility in the first place. This reminds me of those situations where you are not allowed to litter, but there are no garbage cans; or no dumping, but there are no dumping facilities.

Another example is my father-in-law who had gone to the same dump facility near his home for years. However, the city has a new electronic device that scans your driver's license to see if you really live in the area and if you are using the dump-site you are supposed to use.

They checked his driver's license and the little electronic device that read his driver's license said, "You are not in the system." So a driver's license is good enough for law enforcement if they pull you over, but not good enough to dump trash. What does this do? It encourages people to dump illegaly.