Dear and Beloved Colleagues,
Last we spoke, we talked about double jeopardy. Today, we move on to maybe my favorite word in the English language: the Outlaw. Article 1.18 of this fat, miserable companion of mine specifies, “No citizen shall be outlawed, nor shall any person be transported out of the State for any offense committed within the same.”
“Ok, Allison,” you’re saying, “what on earth does that matter?”
And I ask you, in return, does Jesse James matter? Does Wild Bill Hickock matter? Does absolute freedom from tyranny and injustice matter?
The purpose of outlawry is basically banishment. You, as a person, have been deemed to illegally exist in our jurisdiction. You have no legal rights anymore.
It’s interesting because, in a former life in a different country, we frequently resolved cases by making the sole condition of probation that the defendant would “leave the jurisdiction and not return during the pendency of the probated sentence.” It worked pretty well, and I remember recounting this to a salty old DA in New Mexico once. He laughed.
“You know, when I used to practice in Oklahoma, we would kind of do the same thing,” he said. “I’d tell repeat misdemeanor defendants to just not show up to court and we’d bench warrant them. Since misdemeanors weren’t extraditable, it basically meant if they left the county, they’d never have to face charges for it.”
Not in Texas, you wouldn’t, my Salty DA.
Smarter lawyers than I have argued that the outlawry provision effectively prohibits sex offender registration requirements, which I think is a pretty interesting way of turning things. Unfortunately, the 14th COA slapped that down pretty handily in Velez v. State, 2002 Tex. App. LEXIS 1153 at 15, basically saying that registrants don’t give up all their legal rights, and registration is not a punishment, technically, so nyah.
But I just need to tell you, dear friends, that there’s a legal definition of outlawry, which I don’t really care for, and a true definition of outlawry, which I aspire to.
Please turn, if you are able, to one of my favorite authors of all time, Tom Robbins, who is still alive in LaConner, Washington, where I once worked and frequented the same coffee shop (the only coffee shop) in the hopes of catching a glimpse of the Outlaw King himself. My icy, outlaw‑wannabe heart skips a beat when I read this passage from Still Life With Woodpecker:
The difference between a criminal and an outlaw is that while criminals frequently are victims, outlaws never are. Indeed, the first step toward becoming a true outlaw is the refusal to be victimized. All people who live subject to other people’s laws are victims. People who break laws out of greed, frustration, or vengeance are victims. We outlaws, however, live beyond the law. We don’t merely live beyond the letter of the law–many businessmen, most politicians, and all cops do that–we live beyond the spirit of the law. In a sense, then, we live beyond society.
When war turns whole populations into sleepwalkers, outlaws don’t join forces with alarm clocks. Outlaws, like poets, rearrange the nightmare.
The trite mythos of the outlaw; the self-conscious romanticism of the outlaw; the black wardrobe of the outlaw; the fey smile of the outlaw; the tequila of the outlaw and the beans of the outlaw; respectable men sneer and say ‘outlaw’; young women palpitate and say ‘outlaw’. All outlaws are photogenic. ‘When freedom is outlawed, only outlaws will be free.’ Unwilling to wait for mankind to improve, the outlaw lives as if that day were here. Outlaws are can openers in the supermarket of life.
Dear friends, I so encourage you to find your inner outlaw. The outlaw doesn’t listen to the definitions or branding of the State. The outlaw creates the world he wants to live in. But still, you know, wash your hands.
Love always, AJM
