Was This Arrest Legal? or Was It Unjust? Should I Just Pay the Fine or Try to Fight It in Court? Please Advice?
Question by : Was this arrest legal? or was it unjust? Should I just pay the fine or try to fight it in court? please advice?
Ok I need some legal advice and opinions.
What happened was that I was at home drinking, and I probably had about 30 beers during the day, I recently got fired so I’ve just been drinking while I find a new job, anyway, when my wife came home from work she saw me passed out and she said she tried to wake me up and I didn’t, so she called an ambulance, by the time the ambulance showed up I was very drunk but awake, but the police also came for some reason, now what happened was that 2 weeks ago I was hospitalized for alcohol poisoning and one of the officers that came had remembered that, so when I refused to go with the ambulance the officer told me I was being disorderly and told me that I would go with the ambulance or with him to jail. So I chose the ambulance.
Well when I arrived at the hospital, they wanted me to sign papers consenting to medical care, and I didn’t, I told them I just wanted to leave, so they said ok, that as long as I was awake they couldn’t force me to get medical care, so I left, and my wife was waiting for me in the lobby, apparantly I also may have laughed at the ambulance people trying to get me medical care and some of the hospital police saw that.
Ok, so I walked out of the hospital with my wife, and I was still very drunk, I lit a cigarette in front of the hospital and a hospital cop came out and told me to put it out, and I did.
Afterwards, I was walking/stumbling with my wife towards the car, and then about 3 of those hospital cops came up and surrounded me and said that I had elbowed my wife! I told them I didn’t and she did too, I was just holding on to her because I had trouble walking because I was drunk, and she told them she was taking me home. But they wouldn’t let up and then cuffed me and put me in a security car, and called the county police.
Then the police came and put me in the patrol car and wrote me a ticket for “Public Intoxication” and took me to jail to the drunk tank.
I had to spend the night in jail! I didn’t even really do anything, I was just leaving the hospital with my wife! Anyway the ticket was for $ 250 dollars. I was released from jail the next morning without bail and now I’m free. I was furious, I practically got arrested for no reason and I got the feeling the hospital cops didn’t like me for some reason.
So, that same day I went to an attorney to ask him about the situation, he said that retaining an attorney for this would cost more that the fine and that the outcome could not be guarranted.
So what do you think? Am I guilty of this? Was the arrest just?
Should I just pay the ticket or try to fight this? I was very humiliating.
By the way I don’t have a criminal record apart from this.
@Ruth- If I got taken to the hospital drunk in an ambulance and then discharged after about half an hour, and I was still drunk, how am I supposed to get to the car with my wife without technically being drunk in public? I never acted disorderly or loud and I didn’t elbow her, the hospital security were also very rude to her and threatened to arrest her when she got upset that they cuffed me and told them that I did nothing wrong, and even after they cuffed me and put me in the patrol car, I never resisted, I was polite and did NOT do anything wrong. It was humiliating that I had to spend the night in jail in an orange jumpsuit when I didn’t do anything.
@Starlord- Prosecutor???! They have prosecutors for citations? The lawyer I consulted told me that in my state you can’t even go to jail for Public Intoxication unless it was aggravated such as Disorderly or if you Assaulted someone verbally or physically then you get 30 days, and he also said the maximum fine was 300 dollars. Why would they bring a prosecutor for this?
Best answer:
Answer by Ruth C
you were out in public and you were drunk. quit making excuses and pay up, and stop putting your wife through this.
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