Senator Larry Craig's arrest was all a big mistake.
Larry Craig’s Best Friend: The US Constitution
As word comes of Sen. Larry Craig’s reconsideration of his announced resignation from the U.S. Senate, it turns out that his best ally in getting rid of his guilty plea for his conduct in a Minneapolis airport restroom may be the United States Constitution.
If the senator had been a better student of the U.S. Constitution, his arrest may never happened at all, and if the U.S. Constitution is followed, as of course it should be, the senator’s arrest and guilty plea will have to be vacated.
This is because the Constitution, in a straightforward and unambiguous manner, states in Article 1, Section 6 that “Senators and Representatives. shall. be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same.” (emphasis mine) The only exceptions are for treason, felony and breach of peace, and the senator, of course, was charged with a misdemeanor.
Since the senator was on his way to Washington, and did in fact cast a vote on the evening of the day on which he was arrested, his arrest and subsequent questioning were, technically speaking, unconstitutional.
If the senator had flashed the Constitution at the officer as soon as the officer flashed his badge at him, the officer would have had no choice but to release the senator to go on his way.
This of course does not change the facts of the matter, or confer innocence on the senator. His guilty plea remains inexplicable if the senator had, as he insists, done nothing more than pick a piece of paper up off a bathroom floor. If that’s all he did, why would he plead guilty to anything? How does cleaning the floor of a public restroom constitute disorderly conduct, and why on earth would anyone plead guilty to such a charge if his actions were perfectly innocent? People might plead guilty to a lesser charge to avoid a more serious charge, but people just do not plead guilty in order to conceal innocent behavior.
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