been urging in England has now been accomplished in Washington, D. C. perhaps for the entire United States.

Hearing from probation authorities that one Calvin Rittenour was supposedly homosexual, vice cop Robert Arscott phoned Mr. R., pretending to be a transient who'd heard Mr. R might put him up for the nite. Going to Mr. R.'s apartment (while officer Louis Fochett waited outside) Arscott said the defendant made "advances," and arrested him.

On August 19, the D. C. Municipal Court of Appeals reversed Muni. Judge Mildred Reeves, and declared that prosecution of an individual for "lewd, obscene or indecent" acts performed in private was not consistent with common law. As in the Appeals Court's Vallerga opinion, the Court said that an act of Congress which penalized acts in private could not have meant that, since that was contrary to common law. In effect the Court denied that Congress or any legislative body could pass such a law or that such a law could be valid!

They added, citing the 1956 Guarro decision, that the officer had tended to solicit the defendant's action. Basically and essentially appellant was arrested, tried and convicted on a charge of being a homosexual; but under our law homosexuality is not a crime."

The Washington POST, which earlier had chided the British for dropping the Wolfenden proposals, editorialized: "The Municipal Court of Appeals rendered a service to common sense and common decency when it ruled the other day that a homosexual act is not a crime if performed in privacy between two consenting adults. Such an act is, of course, offensive to the morals and mores of Western civilization, but in attempting to deal with it as a

one

crime, the police have been led into another form of immorality. . . In making its ruling, the Court of Appeals reversed a conviction obtained by a common-and contemptiblepolice practice involving something very like provocation and entrapment . . .''

This was not the first reversal for the arresting officers. Fochett has been severely reprimanded by D. C. judges for improper conduct of cases where he'd seemed to do more than necessary to encourage acts for which he made arrests. And Arscott was lately victim of a nasty vice-squad sideline. D. C. cops have reportedly encouraged gangs of hustlers who prey on homosexuals in Lafayette Park, but one nite, officer Arscott, dressed like a choice morsel, was mistaken for a homosexual and severely beaten by 5 young toughs . . .

QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES?

Further D. C. news: In June, Beat poet Richard Dabney was acquitted of charges he sold marijuana to undercover narcotics agent Jose Estrada, after he testified and Estrada largely admitted, the officer had spent weeks urging on Dabney the joys of the weed, which Dabney after much pleading, consented to obtain for Estrada . . . Officer Edw. Merward faced trial board charges that he'd posed for provocative fotos with a pro strip teaser . . . 4 cops acquitted (lack of evidence and unreliability of the witness-victim) of rape and sodomy with 31-yr-old woman-but still face fitness hearings... Veteran D. C. cop (father of 2) charged with sodomy in Arlington parking lot with a musician... "Who polices the police?" editorialized the POST.

First of two-part tangents to be concluded next issue.