…who may have consumed a small amount of alcohol…
That’s the issue in the Iowa Court of Appeals case State v. Bolden in 2005. Mr. Bolden was arrested for public intoxication, and he argued that the statute was unclear, vague and overbroad. He stated that the current public intoxication law results in:
“Iowa Citizens, of a majority age, who may have consumed a small amount of alcohol are chilled from exercising their constitutional right to traverse and associate on public streets for fear they may become targets of arbitrary and capricious seizures.”
I think he brings up a good point. Many people arrested for public intoxication in Iowa City’s downtown environment can point to the other people around them that were “more drunk that I was.” The vagueness of Iowa’s public intoxication law is was leads to these “arbitrary and capricious” situations.