My attention was drawn last week to the fact that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has been supporting bail reform. Specifically, they’ve argued in federal courts that fixed bail schedules are unconstitutional because they penalize the indigent unfairly.
The issue came up recently in Georgia. A man with the ironic name Walker was charged with a WWI, walking while intoxicated. Rather than, say, being held until sober and ticketed, or told to appear in court on such-and-such a date, Walker was jailed six days because he couldn’t afford $160 bail. A federal judge already ruled that was wrong back in January, but the Georgia city where this took place has appealed the decision, so the DOJ is in it, on the side of Mr. Walker and anyone else treated this way.
Hooray for the DOJ. That’s twice in two weeks they’ve done good (last time was coming down against private prisons), and all praise to them.
However, I can’t resist making the observation that the crime of being a pedestrian while drunk has got to be one of the most blatant absurdities I’ve ever heard of. When do we punish people for not driving drunk? Is this a Jim Crow leftover? How low does your alcohol content have to be before it’s legal to park the Oldsmobile and get out and walk home the rest of the way?
“Why were you walking while drunk, Mr. Walker?” I can imagine a judge asking, and getting the answer, “Because my friends took away my keys to the car, your honor.”
Speaking of constitutional rights of poor people, it was just a little more than a year ago that the DOJ first turned my head and came out with an amicus brief in Idaho declaring it unconstitutional to criminalize homelessness when there are not enough shelter spaces in a city. It was the first time I remember thinking, “Oh yeah, Eric Holder is gone. So, hey, who is this Loretta Lynch person, anyway?”
It seems like they have to spell everything out in excruciating detail, because the broad principles are never enough. The city of Seattle can’t seem to just take that amicus brief and conclude that the way so-called homeless sweeps are done is unconstitutional. Because they can point to the loophole: “The DOJ said you can’t criminalize homelessness if there’s not enough shelter, but you haven’t proved there’s not enough shelter, have you? Ha! Caught you.”
Actually, in fact, there isn’t enough shelter, and anyway what shelter we have is inadequate and the principle is the same.
Furthermore, the way sweeps have been conducted amounts to criminalizing and punishing homelessness for the fact of it. The city can’t get away with pretending that destroying tents is merely cracking down on the paraphernalia of a lifestyle choice. Those tents are lifelines.
When I get frustrated by such failures to grasp the simple needs of citizens, I like to lean back and enjoy fantasies of a just end of the world.
I like to imagine the world ending by everyone in power getting what they want. I envision a kind of Mall-ocalypse, where the entire planet is one giant super mall interspersed with nice people living in nice middle-class homes, whose sole purpose in life is to buy Chia Pets, lawn furniture, home stereo systems and ointments, and eat at buffets.
I don’t just stop at the planet’s surface. I like to imagine that teleporters get invented and have long ranges so cars, trains, planes and space ships all become obsolete, and the Mall Earth extends throughout the Milky Way, to gazillions of planets and space colonies in between planets, and you can go to any of those places, and they all have all the same shops that are just around the corner wherever you already are.
And then, just when the universe is absolutely perfect everywhere and has all the same wonderful consumer heaven everywhere, all the rents for all the mall shops and eateries and rental homes go up by a factor of three and property taxes on all the paid-for homes have to go up one hundred fold to make up for the budget shortfalls.
No, I’m kidding. That would never happen. Mall heaven would be perfectly sustainable and would last an eternity.