After arriving in Durham this semester following a summer of debauchery, I was told by several of my friends about the latest menace to Duke's social scene. Once I got past the cleverness of the acronym-Alcohol Law Enforcement-my mind turned to images of computers tracking Solo cup purchases and agents belaying through windows of duplexes off East Campus.
Although this paranoid forecast turned out to be a bit outlandish, nearly 200 students were cited with violations related to underage drinking. In my first column of this semester, I sympathized with their plight by relating my own experience in the gnashing jaws of the state (pertaining to a traffic incident).
Thus began a saga of a few months, which turned out to be little more than a boon to Durham's legal industry. In the end, the cited students who did not plead guilty had crucial evidence against them suppressed and their cases thrown out. Apparently the ALE agents were just a tad overzealous in their "back to school operation," entering houses and detaining partygoers sans the requisite warrant and Miranda warnings.
Their apparent lack of training in constitutional rights aside, alcohol law enforcers have been reported by some of those involved to be downright "rude" and "disrespectful."
If these are the methods required for meaningful enforcement of the law, what are we to conclude about the law?
The ALE crackdowns were the predictable result of Duke's evolving alcohol policy and the disgruntlement of Durham residents who, for some reason, don't appreciate having their houses urinated on. But it seems clear that the crackdowns aren't likely to accomplish much in the way of behavior modification and may contribute to a troublesome relationship between students and the state.
What should we think about a government that will send pink-polo-clad agents onto private property-wolves in sheeps' clothing-to punish students for one of the most ubiquitous behaviors in undergraduate academia? Students who, if they tried to walk from the party to Cosmic Cantina, would be taking their lives into their hands because the same government seems unable to protect them (from robbery-punchings, anyway).
Agents didn't need a warrant, they claim, because of the "exigent circumstance" that "they were worried students who were drinking beer would finish doing so, thus eliminating one piece of evidence in the arrests" (The Chronicle, Oct. 31, 2005). Wouldn't that have been awful? Students might have wrapped up their party and walked back to East, escaping arbitrary punishment for a crime that many hundreds more were likely committing simultaneously.
There have been no real winners (except, as I mentioned, Durham lawyers) in this tale. ALE appears toothless and incompetent, students continue to party with perpetual uneasiness that only a few shots can remedy, and Durham residents can probably look forward to more pee.
There are lessons, though. Law enforcement agents need to brush up on their Fourth Amendment case law (I recommend a class with political science Professor Peter Fish). Duke needs to consider its alcohol policy in light of the effects it has on community relations-with the understanding that students are unlikely to stop drinking anytime soon. And students, perhaps most of all, need to realize that the moral (constitutional?) high ground they achieved in this case is fleeting. They must do everything they can not to make themselves targets of law enforcement or their neighbors' ire. Community members may be asking for a bit much if they want peace and quiet at midnight on Saturday, but they have the right to expect that their property will be respected.
In the meantime, let's start keeping lawyers on retainer during off-campus parties.
David Kleban is a Trinity junior. His column appears every other Thursday.
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