State v. Culp

I dissent, because the hallway of an apartment building is a “public place” within the meaning of Indiana’s public intoxication statute. To conclude otherwise is to uproot centuries of statutory and common law. The great Cardozo said, “What has once been settled by a precedent will not be unsettled overnight, for certainty and uniformity are gains not lightly to be sacrificed.” 1

Our public intoxication statute is the evolutionary product of laws enacted over two thousand years ago.2 A more recent precursor of modern public intoxication laws, whether classified as statutory or common law, is a…