Ray Barnett reminded me that cops in Florida, before 1972, didn't need to use the mythical charges of Vitamin Deficiency and Mopery when they wanted to slap someone in the slammer. There was always the Vagrancy law.
This is how it read: Rogues and vagabonds, idle or dissolute persons who go about begging, common gamblers, persons who use juggling or unlawful games or plays, common pipers or fiddlers, common drunkards, and night walkers. Thieves, pilferers, traders in stolen property, lewd, wanton and lascivious persons, keepers of gambling places, common railers and brawlers, persons who neglect their calling or employment, or are without reasonable continuous employment. Persons who misspend what they earn. Persons wandering or strolling around from place to place without any lawful purpose or object. Habitual loafers, idle and disorderly persons neglecting all lawful business and habitually spending their time by frequenting houses of ill fame, gaming houses or tippling houses shall be guilty of vagrancy and subject to the penalty provided.
Don't know about you, but I'm good for about ten of those things any day of the week. Especially the habitual loafers part. And in the days before our corrupt politicians had turned many Americans into legitimate homeless folks, there were the homeless that were really bums. Tramps. Well, vagrants. Except in Florida. Weren't allowed. We had a law against it. Don't know where they were, but they weren't tolerated in F L A..
Vagrancy was a Florida Statute until the Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional in February of 1972.
All good cops know that a liberal amount of discretion must be melded with common sense in applying the written law. They know that if they used the letter of the law no one could drive a mile or walk ten feet without being arrested for some violation.
We must have laws. But, Damn! How many do you really need to keep the lid on the garbage can?
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