A Survey of State Laws Against Glue Sniffing and Driving Under the Influence of Glue

After writing yesterday's post on this story about a man arrested in Cedar Rapids, Iowa for allegedly driving while sniffing fumes from an aerosol can, I decided to do a little more research into glue sniffing laws in other states. As I noted in yesterday's post, Cedar Rapids' ordinance does not apply to any substances other than glue or cement, so any non-adhesive, aerosolized substances that people may inhale to get high are not covered by the ordinance. Additionally, I was unable to find any provisions in Iowa law regarding driving under the influence (operating while intoxicated) that clearly applied to driving while under the influence of inhaled glue or other aerosolized substances.

Cedar Rapids' ordinance banning glue sniffing states:

62.29 - GLUE SNIFFING.

(a) As used in this section the term model glue shall mean any glue or cement containing toluene, acetone, or other solvent or chemical having the property of releasing toxic vapors.   

(b) No person shall, for the purpose of causing a condition of intoxication, euphoria, excitement, exhilaration, stupefaction, or dulling of the senses or nervous system, smell or inhale the fumes from any model glue; provided, however, that this section shall not apply to the inhalation of any anesthesia for medical or dental purposes.                           

(c) No person shall possess, buy, sell, transfer possession, or receive possession of any model glue for the illegal purposes set forth in subsection (b) hereof.

While I concluded that Cedar Rapids' ordinance did not apply to the conduct described in the article, there are other, more expansive, state laws on glue sniffing that Cedar Rapids may want to imitate if it wants to broadly ban the huffing of fumes from glues and aerosols.

Parents' Liability for Their Children's Online Conduct

The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has this interesting post about Boston v. Athearn, a recent case from the Court of Appeals of Georgia. From the Law Blog:

The Georgia Court of Appeals ruled that the parents of a seventh-grade student may be negligent for failing to get their son to delete a fake Facebook profile that allegedly defamed a female classmate. 

The trouble started in 2011 when, with the help of another student, the boy constructed a Facebook profile pretending to be the girl. He used a “Fat Face” app to make her look obese and posted profane and sexually explicit comments on the page depicting her as racist and promiscuous, according to court documents. 

When the girl found out about it, she told her parents who then complained to the school’s principal. The school punished the boy with two days of in-school suspension and alerted his parents, who grounded him for a week. 

But for the next 11 months, according to the appeals court opinion, the page stayed up. It wasn’t deleted until Facebook deactivated the account at the urging of the girl’s parents, the opinion said. The girl’s lawyer says the child’s parents didn’t immediately confront the boy’s parents because their school refused to identify the culprit for confidentiality reasons.

The full opinion of the court is available here.

The court emphasized that the parents had been notified of their child's online conduct, and pointed out that the nature of online defamation created an ongoing harm to the plaintiffs. From the opinion:

In this case, it is undisputed that Dustin used a computer and access to an Internet account improperly, in a way likely to cause harm, and with malicious intent. The Ahearns contend that they had no reason to anticipate that Dustin would engage in that conduct until after he had done so, when they received notice from the school that he had been disciplined for creating the unauthorized Facebook profile. Based on this, they contend that they cannot be held liable for negligently supervising Dustin’s use of the computer and Internet account. The Ahearns’ argument does not take into account that, as Dustin’s parents, they continued to be responsible for supervising Dustin’s use of the computer and Internet after learning that he had created the unauthorized Facebook profile. While it may be true that Alex was harmed, and the tort of defamation had accrued, when even one person viewed the false and offensive postings, it does not follow that the Athearns’ parental duty of reasonable supervision ended with the first publication.

Given the nature of libel, the original tortious conduct may continue to unfold as the false and injurious communication is published to additional readers or the defamatory content persists in a public forum without public correction or retraction. With regard to the instant action, we conclude that a reasonable jury could find that, after learning on May 10, 2011, of Dustin’s recent misconduct in the use of the computer and Internet account, the Ahearns failed to exercise due care in supervising and controlling such activity going forward. Given that the false and offensive statements remained on display, and continued to reach readers, for an additional eleven months, we conclude that a jury could find that the Athearns’ negligence proximately caused some part of the injury Alex sustained from Dustin’s actions (and inactions). Accordingly, the trial court erred in granting the Athearns’ motion for summary judgment in part. (footnotes omitted).

Critics have spoken out against this ruling, arguing that it is undesirable or that the negligence lawsuit should have been barred by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). I think that this ruling is far less problematic than the critics have argued, and I explain my reasoning after the break.

Bar Exam Dress Codes

The California bar exam does not have a dress code, and many people I know who are taking the exam are thankful for this. I am ditching my own tradition of wearing a tie during exams -- it served me well in law school, but given the length of the bar exam and the stress involved, I think that I will do best with more comfortable clothing.

But this wouldn't fly in a state like Virginia. For the Virginia Bar Exam, the Board of Bar Examiners has one of the most delightful dress codes I have ever seen:

The Board is aware that many law firms and other professional offices have "dress down" policies of varying descriptions. There is no "dress down" or "casual dress" policy at the Virginia Bar Exam. 

Applicants who come to the Virginia Bar Exam are expected to dress in proper attire. For men, proper attire is coat and tie. For women, proper attire is traditional business attire. 

Recognizing the high calibre of professionalism that has traditionally characterized the bar, the Board is confident that no further discussion of this topic will be necessary.

This is the strictest dress code I have seen for a bar exam, and after looking through some states' rules for their bar exams, it seems that dress codes for these exams are pretty rare. I did find that the Georgia Office of Bar Admissions mandates "quiet shoes" with soft soles, and prohibits flip flops in order to avoid disruption during the exam. And if a test-taker wants to dress in the spirit of Virginia's requirements, that person's coat may be subject to search for prohibited items.

On a side note, if I ever start a law firm, I will probably steal the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners' dress code word-for-word.

Rick Santorum is Wrong About the History of Gun Control

I blogged a few days ago about Georgia's new law that expands the ability of people to carry concealed firearms. Georgia's law expands the rights of people to carry firearms in and around airports (though not past security screenings), in bars, and in other places.

Recently, former presidential aspirant Rick Santorum spoke out in favor of the bill, arguing that it will make Georgia a safer place. The Hill reports on an event where Santorum defended his view on the law:

He dismissed a question from “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer that the bill could turn the state into the “O.K. Corral.” 

“Everybody romanticizes the O.K. Corral and everything that happened, but gun crimes were not very prevalent back then,” Santorum responded. “Why? Because people carried guns.”

But I recall from Adam Winkler's excellent book, Gunfight, that the widespread carrying of guns was not the reason why gun crime was so prevalent in the old west -- especially not in Tombstone, Arizona where the showdown at the O.K. Corral took place. According to Winkler:

Americans have long celebrated that shootout as a defining incident in our cultural heritage of guns. Less often recognized, however, is the central role gun control played in that day's events. Two years before the gunfight, the Tombstone city council adopted a law known as Ordinance No. 9. The title of the ordinance was "To Provide against the Carrying of Deadly Weapons." 

It was the failure of the Clantons and McLaurys to abide by the requirements of Ordinance No. 9 that provoked the shootout. Recall that Ike Clanton was arrested and fined twenty-five dollars, not a trivial amount in 1881. The fine was the penalty imposed on Ike for walking around the town armed, in violation of Ordinance No. 9. When Wyat Earp beat Tom McLaury on the street, it wasn't just out of anger. Wyatt demanded that Tom turn over the concealed firearm that Earp believed tom was carrying, again in violation of the ordinance. Instead of depositing their guns upon their arrival in Tombstone, the Clanton/McLaury gang was still armed when spotted at the gun shop loading up on ammunition just a few minutes before the shootout. . . . [N]o one doubts that the Cowboys had broken the law -- a gun control law. (172-173).

Winkler goes on in his book to note that gun control ordinances like Ordinance No. 9 were extremely common in western towns. While carrying guns on the frontier for self-defense was a near-universal practice, many towns required those passing through to leave their guns with the sheriff while they were within city limits.

So Santorum is completely wrong here. Gun crimes were rare in the west not because people constantly carried firearms, but because they constantly had to forfeit their firearms when entering towns. In Santorum's defense, Bob Schieffer's question hinted at the misconception that western towns were filled with guns, but that does not excuse Santorum from turning the misleading reference into a complete tall-tale.

Georgia Law Expands Right to Carry Concealed Firearms

The New York Times reports:

The 29-page law, which goes into effect on July 1, was approved overwhelmingly last month by the Republican-controlled Legislature with some support from Democrats. It will expand the roster of places where gun owners who hold concealed-carry permits can take their weapons to include bars. Critics said its scope created new dangers.

The law permits those with licenses to carry concealed firearms to carry firearms in airports where unscreened passengers or visitors are allowed. And it allows school districts to permit their teachers to have firearms.

The bill does have its limits, so some gun rights advocates are still unsatisfied:

And although the law is a significant victory for proponents of gun rights, it is less broad than some of them envisioned. Houses of worship are still allowed to bar weapons, and a proposal that would have permitted guns on college campuses faltered during the legislative session. 

“Was HB60 all we wanted?” GeorgiaCarry.Org, a nonprofit group, posted on its website in March, referring to the bill. “Of course not! But we feel that we got a great bill and this will clear the way for some great improvements in the future. And those of you who have been with us for any length of time know, we ask for everything we want and accept what we can get without giving up any of the gains we have made in the past. We keep marching down the field, and one day, we will get all our rights back.”

The bill expands Second Amendment protections far beyond the U.S. Constitutional minimum that the Supreme Court laid out in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. City of Chicago. In both of those cases, the Court strongly implied that the government could still restrict firearm possession on governmental property and in schools.

Georgia's constitution mirrors the Second Amendment, with Article 1, section 1, paragraph 8 of the Georgia Constitution stating that "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Georgia law seems to mirror the scope of Second Amendment law. The Georgia Supreme Court, in Hertz v. Bennett, 751 S.E.2d 90 (Ga. 2013) held that a statute outlawing the possession of firearms by convicted felons did not violate the state constitution -- which is consistent with limiting language in Heller and McDonald.

Some organizations who have raised questions about the law say that they may challenge the law down the road. But now that the law is in place, I expect that any attempt to limit the new protections would be viewed as an attempt to limit the right to bear arms and would be met with serious opposition.

Using Drones to Smuggle Drugs

After summarizing an unsuccessful drug-smuggling attempt in Georgia, the BBC reports on how drones are now being used to smuggle drugs into prisons:

Remote-controlled flying devices are becoming the tool of choice for those determined to smuggle in contraband, Stephane Lemaire, president of Quebec's correctional officers' union, tod the Ottawa Sun. 

"Usually the drones are carrying small packages of drugs or other illicit substances," he said. 

"Now that drones are relatively cheap to buy, they've become the best way to smuggle drugs inside," he added.

Nonmilitary drones are not all bad, however, as they "are increasingly being used in civilian life to make small deliveries, from pizzas to vital medicines."