Modified public intoxication law signed by governor

Public intoxication arrests must meet a new set of specific requirements, according to an Indiana law that goes into effect July 1.

According to SB 97, individuals may not be convicted of public intoxication unless they endanger their own lives or someone else’s life or are likely to disturb the peace, create a disturbance or harass another person.

An amendment to the legislation said an officer is not liable should an individual cause a disturbance after being dismissed by police.

Gov. Mitch Daniels signed the bill March 19.

“It’s a constitutional law you can drink, the Supreme Court said so in 1852,” said Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis. “We’re basically saying ‘Hey, as long as you’re not bothering anybody, you shouldn’t be a criminal.’”

Young authored the bill in response to a 2011 Indiana Supreme Court decision in Moore v. State. In that case, officers charged an Indianapolis woman with public intoxication after she handed her keys to a sober driver because she was too drunk to drive her car home.

When officers pulled the car over and discovered the sober driver did not have a valid driver’s license, the passenger admitted she was intoxicated. She was arrested and found guilty of public intoxication.

“The court said, ‘Hey, our hands are tied,’” Young said. “The law says if you’re in public, and a car is in a public place, and you have alcohol in your system and a police officer thinks you’re intoxicated, whether you cause any problems or not, you’re guilty of a public intoxication charge.”

But such a charge, Young said, goes against the state’s public policy, which states an intoxicated individual should designate a sober driver rather than driving drunk.

“Here we tell people, ‘If you can’t drive, get a ride,’ and now we make a criminal out of them,” Young said. “We didn’t think that was right.”

Capt. Joe Qualters of the Bloomington Police Department said he does not anticipate an effect on the BPD. At least one of the components of the new statute is already typically evident in public intoxication arrests, he said.

“Making arrests for public intoxication has never been a numbers game for us, and we don’t make those types of arrests just for the sake of making an arrest,” Qualters said. “Most are usually made in response to a call or an observation by an officer on patrol.”

If police respond to a fight and determine one or more of the participants is intoxicated, Qualters said as an example, their intoxication would qualify under the “breach of peace” statute in the new law.

“Chances are that if an intoxicated person is not drawing attention to themselves in some manner and is just trying to get from Point A to Point B, they would be left alone now,” Qualters said. “That course of action by a person who chooses to walk rather  than drive is always encouraged.”

The only change officers should see, Qualters said, is that they will be required to articulate in their reports what behaviors were observed and what part of the statute was violated.

“We’re just doing the right thing here,” Young said. “We asked for citizens to take a specific course of action. We shouldn’t make them criminals when they do it, and that’s what this bill accomplishes.”