Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Truman has suggested several times that our drug rules lay AERC open to
legal assault.  I'd like to give an analogy of law, limited "testing" and
selected enforcement that occurs regularly in our county.

First, we have a state highway that runs between Leadore and the Montana
border that I'd bet is lucky to see a deputy or a state patrolman once a
month.  Yet there IS a posted speed limit.  (Granted, it is tough to go
TOO much over the speed limit because this state highway is as yet unpaved
and has some major twists and turns in it as it goes up toward the
Divide.)  Nonetheless, I doubt that one caught speeding there and ticketed
would get far with a judge with a defense that states that there is not
enough enforcement on that road, so the fact that he got caught shouldn't
count.

Second, this is a small community where everybody knows everybody.  If you
don't believe that the handful of teenagers who have been labeled as
"troublemakers" by the cops aren't held to a different standard than the
rest of us, then I've got waterfront property on the Bonneville Salt Flat
that I'd like to talk to you about...  The "policy" here is that you will
not even be pulled over unless you are going at least 10 mph over the
limit.  And yes, I've even heard our local Men With Badges state that. 
But you'd better believe that if you are one of my Alternative High School
boys, you will be pulled over if you are going a gnat's eyebrow over the
limit, and you WILL be ticketed.  Again, I've yet to see one of them
successfully defend themselves in court by stating that the "policy" is
not to ticket people unless they are going 10 mph over.  Do I think this
selective enforcement is right?  No.  But the limit is there, and the kids
are technically in violation.

I am disgusted by what happened to Becky Glaser.  The penalty should have
fit the "crime."  And it IS the stated policy that the vet committee's
recommendations for penalty will be observed.  Becky's case, should she
have chosen to go forward with it, would have had to have been based on
the discrepancy between the vet committee's recommendation and what was
actually done.  (And I agree she likely had a case based on that.)  But
she WAS in violation of the stated rule, and as such, I would think it
highly doubtful that she could have based a case on the rule itself.  I'm
not an attorney, and don't even play one on TV, but the problem with
Becky's case IMO does not lie with the rule, it lies with the fact that
the vet committee treated her appropriately, only to be overturned by the
P&G and by the BOD.  That does not call for trashing the rule--it calls
for a reexamination of the penalty phase, which is a whole nuther thing.

Heidi


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