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Scottish Charity Register No. SC043760

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Beggar wins case in US

May 18 2009
Loitering and begging protected under America‘s First Amendment Across the pond, an American judge has set a new precedent in a case where a homeless man was arrested after asking a police officer for a dollar. New York judge Gail Rice ruled that the case against Eric Hoffstead should be thrown out of court after she decided that the state law currently in place was not in accordance with America's First Amendment that gives everyone freedom of speech. The ruling came after Mr Hoffstead himself, suggested to his court appointed lawyer that he used a 15-year-old court decision in his defense. This had ruled that the New York state's law of criminalising loiterers and beggars was against free speech. To this day, the law still remains in place, but with Mr Hoffstead's latest victory, it is more than certain that it will not hold if challenged in court by others who might be arrested in the future for either loitering or begging. Mr Hoffstead, 36, started living on the streets about a year ago. He told the New York Times in a jailhouse interview that he worked for years as a barber before losing everything to drugs, including a job and a home. Before Mr Hoffstead was unfortunate enough to run into the police officer on November last year, he had already an extensive arrest record but none for serious offences. Journal News, a New York newspaper, analysing the story after Mr Hoffstead's case was dismissed, said that that the line of begging can be a very blurry one. "The question becomes more complicated when the panhandler is not the loathsome drunk but the volunteer firefighter collecting for new equipment, the Scouts collecting for a camping trip, the wrestling team members collecting for new uniforms, or maybe the Metro-North commuter who needs a "dollar" because she left a wallet in another coat." It goes on to ponder how a prohibition on beggars can be enforced, after considering all the above situations.
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