Editorial: Craig shouldnt get to go back
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Imagine how many defendants could ask the Minnesota courts to withdraw guilty pleas if Idaho Sen. Larry Craig is allowed to withdraw the guilty plea to disorderly conduct he entered Aug. 1.
Sure, there might be a case built somewhere on the fuzziness of whether toe tapping in a restroom constitutes an advance that would have resulted in a sex act in a public place, but that fuzziness is not the heart of the matter here. The fact is, Craig pleaded guilty to a charge and he had plenty of time to think about it.
There&8217;s nothing unclear about that.
It&8217;s not as though Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport authorities rushed the senator straight from the toilet seat to the judicial bench and asked him to enter a plea.
He was arrested June 11. He had seven weeks to contemplate his plea &8212; one he entered with a signature.
No, he took a calculated risk. He hoped the matter would just go away and no news outlet would discover the hot water he was in. He knew full well that pleading guilty was akin to saying, &8220;Yes, judge, I tapped my toe because I wanted to have sex in a public place.&8221;
If he wanted to fight it, he could have. He then could have made a case about the toe tapping and free speech, but now it seems rather out of course to go back and make those claims. It&8217;s like being at halftime of a football game and asking the league commissioner to go back and start from the end of the first quarter. &8220;If we could replay that last quarter, I&8217;m betting our team would do much better.&8221;
There had better be a very compelling reason to go back &8212; legal goofs such as failure to read Miranda rights or outrageous circumstances such as a threat of violence.
Craig doesn&8217;t have any of that. If he gets to go back, then it sets a precedent for hundreds, maybe thousands, of other cases.