www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/20/french.fry.case.ap -> www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/20/french.fry.case.ap/
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Judge John G Roberts' views on abortion may be murky but there's no question where he stands on the issue of girls eating fri es in a subway station. As a member of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Cir cuit, Roberts wrote a decision last year upholding the arrest of a 12-ye ar-old girl who violated the ban on eating food on Washington's subway s ystem, Metro. But Roberts said that while the arrest was legal, he felt transit officer s overreacted by handcuffing and jailing the girl. "No one is very happy about the events that led to this litigation," he w rote. "Her shoelaces were removed, and she was transported in the window less rear compartment of a police vehicle to a juvenile processing cente r, where she was booked, fingerprinted, and detained until released to h er mother some three hours later -- all for eating a single french fry." Still, Roberts agreed with a lower court ruling upholding the arrest "The District court described the policies that led to her arrest as 'foo lish,' and indeed the policies were changed after those responsible endu red the sort of publicity reserved for adults who make young girls cry," he wrote. "The question before us, however, is not whether these policies were a ba d idea, but whether they violated the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. Like the District court, we conclude that they did not, a nd accordingly we affirm." Two months after the arrest, and following a torrent of bad publicity, th e transit agency revised its policy and said that children under 18 who committed minor offenses would instead be enrolled in a program run in c ooperation with school authorities and other city officials.
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