ST. PAUL, Minn. — Idaho Sen. Larry Craig, seeking to wipe away an embarrassing criminal conviction in an airport men’s room sex sting, put his hopes Wednesday in the Minnesota Court of Appeals.
An attorney for the Republican senator argued that he should be able to withdraw a misdemeanor disorderly conduct plea he quietly entered last year following an arrest during a flight layover. The attorney, Billy Martin, told the three-judge panel that Craig’s behavior was “as consistent with innocence as it is with guilt.”
The appeals court has 90 days to issue a ruling, which means it will come before Craig leaves the Senate. After initially saying he would resign after the incident became public, Craig decided to remain in the Senate until his term ends in January.
A district court judge refused to invalidate the plea last year, prompting the appeal.
Craig didn’t appear at the St. Paul court building where oral arguments were held.
Martin offered the same arguments for allowing Craig to withdraw his plea that were made earlier in the case: that Craig’s actions were misinterpreted by an undercover police officer, that the mail-in guilty plea process was insufficient, and that Craig’s conduct didn’t violate the strict definition of the disorderly conduct law.
“The record is devoid of sufficient evidence for any judge to make an adequate finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Martin said.
He described the encounter in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bathroom in which Craig first stood outside an occupied stall and then allegedly made suggestive motions from an adjacent stall.
Martin refuted the conclusions of an undercover police officer conducting a sting of men cruising for gay sex. The officer said Craig peered inside his stall, tapped a foot next to his and swiped a hand beneath the divider — all perceived invitations for a sexual encounter.
Craig’s fidgety behavior, Martin said, was merely reflective of a man “anxious to go to the bathroom.” He attacked the disorderly conduct law, saying it requires “others” to be affected and not just one person.
Prosecutor Christopher Renz rebutted each of Martin’s arguments and concluded that the record shows Craig committed “multiple intrusions” of another person’s private space. Craig’s decision to loiter outside the occupied stall was part of a pattern, Renz said.
“Upon one check it’s occupied,” Renz told the court. “You can wait until the stall is open.”
Martin also took aim at the mail-in guilty plea bearing Craig’s signature and said a judge should have determined whether there was a sufficient basis for arrest before permitting the senator to enter the plea.
Judge Thomas Kalitowski pointedly asked whether Craig lost his chance to contest the arrest on the record by going through the long-distance plea process.
“Didn’t appellant waive the right to a colloquy when he signed the form?” Kalitowski asked, going on to imply that Craig “waived his right to the appearance. He waived his right to speak.”
After the hearing, Martin told reporters that Craig’s position shouldn’t hamper his ability to clear his name.
“We would hope that the fact here that the case involves a sitting United States senator would make it no different than a case involving an average citizen,” he said. “Every citizen deserves the protection of our laws.”
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