University of Virginia Library

Colloquium

Breaking The Rules

By Bob Ramsey

On March 11, Kent Beyer broke
one of the rules. It is a rule some
people may disagree with or may
not realize exists, but it is a rule. A
police officer saw to it that Mr.
Beyer was informed of his transgression
and was impressed of the
desirability of not repeating his
behavior. For various reasons the
arresting officer, Mr. W.W. Duff of
the Charlottesville police force, did
not follow the rules involved in an
arrest and neglected to take steps to
enable the court of law which tried
the case to go about its business
according to its rules.

What happens to resolve a case
of this nature?

To start, who says that Kent
Beyer must act (or not act) in
certain ways? A quick and sufficient
answer would be to point at
the state of Virginia, in which Mr.
Beyer is presently living and the
laws of which he has not, for
various reasons, changed.

Behavior Pattern?

Who says that the state of
Virginia must itself act in certain
ways? Here we may point out the
United States of America, in which
the state of Virginia is presently
living and the laws of which .....

Virginia metes out a penalty of a
$10 fine to anyone who is convicted
of drinking in public. This
law is designed, I believe, to
discourage people from drinking in
public in Virginia by imposing a
discomfort and inconvenience on
them.

The United States government
penalizes the state governments
which do not conform to its
standards of conduct. The federal
courts use a different approach,
however, which is to reverse any
conviction which was not achieved
according to its rules. This action is
designed. I believe, to encourage
the states to "do things their way"
by rendering ineffective the hard
work of the state officials who do
not do things the way the federal
government wants them to do
things.

Now we all know that if the
students at the University raise
enough money to appeal this
conviction, that some higher court
will reverse it on the very grounds
Mr. Lowe brought out at the trial.
Kent Beyer can be vindicated if we
want vindication of this nature.
Murders have been freed before on
trial technicalities; public drinkers
will get the same courtesy. We can
also be fairly sure that if Mr. Duff
were to get a chance to retrace his
actions, he would act in a manner
which would assure an unreversable
conviction. Or he would have at
least found what the bottle in
question contained. If could have
been full of water. Maybe it
contained an LSD solution. He
should have checked and next time
he will.

No Police Problem

I do not believe that the
problem in this case is the police.
The police have already "learned
their lesson" and merely needed a
little brushing-up on current reality.
The problem is that we do not have
in Charlottesville at this time a
judge who will make the police
work as they should and that the
judge we do have is willing to let us
spend our time, effort and money
to get his superiors to handle the
police. He is denying us our rights
by making it a Big Hassle to get
them. Will reversal of Beyer's
conviction prevent Alan Spitzer
from doing the same at his next
opportunity? From all the reports I
have read and heard, recently and
not so recently, I would be willing
to place a wager to the contrary.

Nothing Lost

Kent Beyer, I would be willing
to help you out. I would like to help
reimburse you and Mr. Lowe for
your trouble. But I would much
rather see you put the money in
your pockets than watch you waste
it trying to regain your honor. In
my eyes you never lost it. If any
further efforts are to be made in
this case, they should go in a
direction which will help us all in
the future. We should spend our
effort changing Judge Spitzer's
actions or replacing him. I know
little of the legal aspects of such a
plan; perhaps Mr. Lowe can tell us
what we can do. If we can do
nothing, we ought to do something
else. If not we should all contribute
to this new legal appeal fund and
get set for a long winter of big Big
Hassles.