I Gouht In A Fight in a Bah in Bahstun

Boston (affectionately called Beantown), has a reputation in folklore and in reality for being a rough and tough, sports-loving, beer-drinking, hard up Irish town. So I wondered, do the criminal laws of Boston (i.e. Massachusetts) reflect its colonial ass-whooping rep? The answer most certainly is, yes.

When I first moved to Boston, my father, a city savvy attorney raised in the Bronx, warned me that like any big city, Boston could be dangerous. "You need to be careful" he said, and insisted that at the earliest opportunity I should buy a Red Sox hat and simply try to blend into the chowda head culture with the hope that I would return to him come Christmas unscathed.

I figured he was being a bit over protective -- the sort of Finding Nemo like paternalism you expect from a professional Dad with four kids. But as it turns out, judging by the criminal laws of Boston, it houses some of the most creative criminals I've ever heard of. In fact, I'm tempted to just rant about Commonwealth v. Blood (1986), a case in which a cop, an inside job man, and a crew of gangsters plot to rob a refinery of $3 million worth of gold bars only to be busted after a snitch in their crew was wearing a wire! See, those Oceans 11 writers aren't that original. (Click for full case here.) They were all later acquitted once the court realized that the cops never got a warrant for the wire -- that and the court took the step of determining that "electronic" surveillance like wire tapping violated a person's reasonable expectation of privacy, and so any warrantless wiretapping of the gangsters constituted a "search", triggering state constituional Search & Siezure protections. Whew, back on track.

Let's begin by accepting the assumption for the purposes of this post that the criminal laws must (having been enacted into law by attentive and concerned legislators) in some way reflect the actual issues facing society at the time the laws were written. If so, not only should I be trying to blend in, but I also need to watch out for duels, anarchy, nuclear weapons, malicious murders of cattle and pigeons, mayhem, communists, arrowheads, molotov cocktails, prize fighters, injurers of football goal posts, and even, yes ladies and gentlemen, even defacers of milk cans. (For a list of all MA crimes, click here)

Massachusetts has a law directly addressing in their respective titles, the issues I outlined above. Let's take a look at a few of the most interesting.

The one I find to be the scariest (and the most revealing) is "Mayhem." Mayhem is when someone maliciously attacks you with the intent of maiming, disfiguring, tearing out, or ripping off your tongue, eyes, ears, lips, nose, or your limbs, and is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. Ripping out your tongue, really? This reads more like the Dooms of Alfred from the time of Norman Saxon rule -- the Dooms listed the "price" you had to pay to the family of the victim or to the King (for "botless" crimes) for doing things like fornicating with a nun, cracking the skull of a family's patriarch, or killing another man's livestock. Very cosmopolitan.

The next law, although I doubt it would ever be used or validly enforced, makes it a crime to knowingly be a member of a subversive organization, especially an organization like the Communist Party. I just finished watching Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and I have to tell YOU, the Kremlin is everywhere -- I bet there are Patriots fans, by golly maybe even Tom Brady, taking secret orders from Moscow.

Now for a more popular, and more prevalent law -- the punishment of duelers, including the participants and the duelers "second." Dueling, a fairly common practice in the U.S. states until the very late 19th century, famously took the life of the Third U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr. Many states have laws on the books making dueling illegal, although some Southern states still have dusty old laws setting down the procedures for legal duels.

Now for the wacky and the random.

I've heard lots of jokes about Chinese food actually being cat (See this HILARIOUS song "Cats in the Kettle at the Peking."), but apparently MA has a problem with pigeons. Not only are you prohibited from killing them, but you can't frighten them either (see Sean Connery in Indiana Jones using his umbrella to scare up some pigeons to the great chagrin of a Nazi pilot -- how else am I supposed to defend myself?).

Lastly, I guess when MA criminals get really bored, they even resort to defacing milk cans. I'm impressed; very creative. Is this why we don't have those little metal boxes for milk in front of our houses? I miss those . . .

Finally a quick note -- I consider myself to be a small guy. 5 foot four and 140 pounds isn't exactly a fair match for any young scrapper with an interest in hurting me. But doesn't someone always say, "Spare the women and children!" Couldn't I be lobbed into THAT category? The answer is SURE, but it won't make any difference! So instead, *special* rules exist for beating up the helpless, the mentally disabled, and any child under the age of 14. At least those big mean guys will have to spend a few extra nights in jail (do I come within the scope of this law if they just think I'm a child?).

Oh, and watch out for tramps, defined by MA law as, "Whoever, not being under seventeen . . . roves about from place to place begging, or living without labor or visible means of support . . ." (Jeez, I hope that doesn't include law students who hold up signs on Mass Ave that say "Will Review Documents for Food.") I'd go on, but I don't want to be charged with blasphemy.

Moral of the story? You should always listen to your parents.