David Rosenwaks '99 will appear in Lebanon District Court today to face a bizarre and puzzling charge. Rosenwaks and about 50 other male students were gathered in the Old Dartmouth Cemetery on Aug. 6, when three Hanover Police officers charged in and tried to arrest them. Many, maybe all, of the men were members of Theta Delta Chi fraternity, and some of them were drinking wine.
Most of the students fled, leaving their bottles behind. The 12 who remained or who were captured by police now face the dubious charge of underage possession of every bottle left on the scene -- 56 bottles of Boone's Farm and MD 20/20 wine. The men were hauled off to the police station and given a sobriety test. Not one of them was found to be intoxicated.
In court today, Hanover Police will try to prove that Rosenwaks had "willful possession and control" of the wine at the time of his arrest. It will be a difficult case to make: Rosenwaks was sober, and the police failed to identify about 40 other potential "suspects." And some of those who fled were 21, old enough to possess alcohol legally.
In order to avoid prosecution, eight of the arrested students have agreed to attend costly, time-consuming alcohol education classes -- an unnecessary and unfair burden on eight 20-year-olds who passed a sobriety test moments after their arrest.
There is only one mystery in this case: Why does Hanover Police show such zeal for prosecuting Dartmouth students when the evidence is so flimsy? This new case is reminiscent of the questionable "internal possession" interpretation Hanover Police used to arrest Dartmouth students until the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union threatened to file suit against them in 1995.
It is possible, even probable, that something illegal occurred in the Old Cemetery on Aug. 6. But Hanover Police, it seems, believes that proximity to a crime is grounds for prosecution.
If justice is served, the court will disagree.
