DPD Ceases Enforcing Prostitution Ordinance

CG2014's Avatar
It was unconstitutional to begin with.


Stopping people, detaining them and then arresting them (issuing a citation i.e. ticket for a misdemeanor, felony or traffic violation is considered an arrest by legal definition: the officer just chose to give you the ticket/citation instead of physically arresting you, putting handcuffs on you and taking you in) without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion..

Just because you are in a area of town that may be high crime, driving in it or walking in it or standing on the sidewalk anywhere, that doesn't make you guilty or prove that you have just committed a crime.

According to this Dallas ordnance, you are Guilty until proven innocent.
Sir Lancehernot's Avatar
Your subject line is misleading. DPD will not be enforcing the ordinance against manifestation of intent to maybe perhaps possibly engage in prostitution. It's been a long while for me, but, at least back in the day, that meant being pulled over for cruising Harry Hines alone and with your windows down, or getting popped for talking to streetwalkers from your car or taking a woman whose profession was obvious into a booth in an adult video store.


I definitely recall a hobbyist posting somewhere in the '90s about some cops banging on the door of a booth into which he had taken a young woman, and being cited for manifestation. And I can speak from first-hand experience about being tailed by DPD for quite a ways on Harry Hines late one night. I was petrified, not about the possibility of a manifestation citation, but of getting a DUI, not only for the first-order problem that would present, but also because I was supposed to be in Waco that night.


To get back to the point: The anti-manifestation ordinance is not being enforced, but the state laws pertaining to prostitution still are.