Mister ED

[Simply Joel]

Court Rules a Horse Is Not a Vehicle

PITTSBURGH - The state Supreme Court ruled that Pennsylvania's drunken driving law can't be enforced against people on horseback, a decision that inspired the dissenting justice to wax poetic.

The court ruled Wednesday in a case against two men in Mercer County in 2002. Riders Keith Travis, 41, and Richard Noel, 49, were charged with drunken driving along with a man driving a pickup who allegedly rear-ended the horse Travis was riding away from a bar on a dark country road.

All three men failed field sobriety tests, police said, but a judge threw out the charges against Noel and Travis after they argued that the word "vehicles" in the state's drunken-driving law doesn't apply to horses.

Prosecutors said the code specifically includes people riding animals. But the majority justices cited a similar case in Utah, where judges said such a statute is confusing and too vague about which regulations would apply to animals as well as vehicles.

Justice Michael Eakin, who is fond of writing rhyming opinions, summed up the lone dissent with two stanzas mimicking the theme song of "Mister Ed" — a 1960s TV sitcom about a talking horse:

"A horse is a horse, of course, of course,

but the Vehicle Code does not divorce

its application from, perforce,

a steed as my colleagues said.

"'It's not vague,' I'll say until I'm hoarse,

and whether a car, a truck or horse

this law applies with equal force,

and I'd reverse instead."

[Simply Joel]

Man Shoots Wife, Mistakes Her for Monkey

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A Malaysian man shot and killed his wife after he mistook her for a monkey picking fruit in a tree behind their house, the New Straits Times said on Wednesday.

The man, 70, is being held by police for causing death through recklessness after he fired a shotgun at what he thought was a monkey in a mangosteen tree on Monday, the newspaper said.

His wife, 68, had used a ladder to climb into the tree and was picking the tropical fruit when she was shot. She was pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital, the paper said. The couple lived in central Malaysia and had raised 13 children.

[shitmouse]

wow, she must have been quite a looker.
-b

[calsur]

So horses can not be considered Mutant Vehicles. That could be a big MOOP problem.

[diane o'thirst]

Horses can and do find their way home, of their own volition, without human guidance. They do it all the time. The humans were drunk, the horses weren't.

Now, I wish I knew how to do photos in this forum so I could paste in that shot from Cat Ballou...