Craigslist

Just a few thoughts as we head into the final stretch of Larry Craig Week.

Despite the me-too (and, in the case of Badly Programmed Robot, sort of sickening) pile-on of Republican condemnation, Larry Craig has dug in his heels and appears loath to go gently into that good night.

This effort will have legal ramifications, of course: today's LA Times has a story today highlighting Craig's potential legal jeopardy for trying to reverse a guilty plea.

Under what circumstances may defendants who plead guilty ask that the court reconsider a plea? It's likely a judge will agree in cases of "manifest unjustice" - such as a defendant who pleads guilty when under the influence or otherwise not of sound judgment; under duress or coercion; or who doesn't understand English.

But despite such strictures, the LAT article argues, judges can often be quite flexible in agreeing to considering voiding such pleas:

"If I was the judge, I would be more than happy to allow him to come back and explain himself," said Eric Newmark, a Minneapolis criminal defense lawyer who practices in the Hennepin County District Court where Craig was convicted. "It is a pretty serious thing to go into court, swear to tell the truth, say what you did, and then [later] tell the media that you didn't do it."

Yes, please do return to the courthouse so that we might have a friendly chat. No, really: we're all ears. And when we can't stand another moment of listening to your feeble tales, we'll throw the book at you.

The downside of doing that would be the reinstatement of a more serious charge against him that was dropped as part of the plea agreement. And that charge -- invasion of privacy linked to his allegedly peeking through a bathroom stall door -- is punishable by up to a year in jail. He would also run the risk of a trial where more embarrassing facts could come out, lawyers said.

I'd say that's a downside.

The cringe-inducing audio recording of Craig's interrogation should give his lawyers pause. All this closet drama! Craig's tone is whingeing and pleading one moment, prissily self-righteous the next. So sad to see a grown man who acts like a slave.

"A lot of these men . . . are horribly embarrassed," [Minnesota law professor Steven M.] Simon said. "That explains the dynamics of him not going to a lawyer."

This isn't all internalized self-loathing, of course. It's projected outward as well:

* Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006)
* Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002)
* Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000)
* Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996)
* Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)

Craig has a 0% rating in HRC’s 2006 Congressional Scorecard.

And Garance Franke-Ruta has an excellent reminder of the context in which such business occurs (h/t LGM):

But, again, I can find nothing in Minnesota state law that makes asking someone to hook up with you a crime, rather than a civil tort (as in sexual harassment law) regardless of the circumstances.

Why, then, do police continue to act as though it is? Because of the long and only-recently ended practice of firm legal discrimination against gay people. Until 2001, consensual sodomy was a crime in Minnesota, meaning that it was only six years ago that gay people in that state stopped being treated by the letter of the law as, quite literally, outlaws and criminals.

Meanwhile, in Idaho, the state Sen. Larry Craig has represented in Congress since 1981, consensual sodomy was a felony punishable as a “crime against nature” by five years to life in prison until 2003, when the Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that a similar statute in Texas was unconstitutional, thus striking down the state’s law. From 1996 until then, the state sex offender registry was written so as to add those convincted of even consensual sodomy to the sex offender rolls for life.

As D-day points out, those who have suffered through the last two years in New Orleans simply live in another country.

And in a (hopefully not too inapt) parallel, those who are gay suffer a raft of indignities and legal jeopardy simply unknown to those who are not. Instituted, in small part, by the Larry Craigs of the world. For, in small part, the Larry Craigs of the world.