The

Undeniable

Ruth

®

…and the Ruth shall set you free!

  • Adventures in Baseball – Tortured by Singing Children

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    Ruth Carter

    On March 20th, I auditioned to be a national anthem singer for the AZ Diamondbacks Major League Baseball Team.  I’ve been a singer for 15 years and I was picked to be one of their singers in 2005 and 2006.  The announcer who was running the show at the auditions said that they expected to have 400-500 people and groups audition for the 60-something home games this season.

    Intérieur du Chase Field
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    There were some really talented people at auditions.  I wasn’t surprised when I got the email that said that I wasn’t selected for this season.  I don’t mind when others are selected above me as long as they are better than me.

    One of my pet peeves is singing children.  It is a rare child who can sing well.  I was annoyed last year when I heard that a nursery school class was selected to sing at the Diamondbacks game.  My guess was the team picked them because they would come to the game with their parents and siblings, and spent lots of money on tickets, hotdogs, and beer.

    I went to the Diamondbacks vs. Pirates game on April 11th with my parents and they did it again.  As I was looking down on the field during the pregame, I saw a large group of small children gathering near the backstop behind home plate.  They looked like they were about 4 years old.  They sang the national anthem and they were absolutely dreadful.  They couldn’t sing a single note on key and we could hardly hear them.  Mom and I drowned out the sound by singing the song ourselves.  We got a lot of thankful grins from people standing near us.

    After the national anthem was over, I was annoyed.  This group of horrible nonsingers was chosen over other talented performers.  If the team wanted to feature child singers this year, that’s fine.  There were enough talented child singers at the anthem auditions that the team didn’t have to use these nursery school kids.  One fan sitting near me said it was a “disgraceful.”

    There was a big sign in the stadium that said, “Report Guest Conduct Issues by Texting “DBACKS”<space>location & issue to 69050.  Given the atrociousness of the performance, I thought it was appropriate to notify the stadium about it.  I sent a text that said, “Dbacks home plate singing kids were terrible.  Please don’t do it again.”

    The response text I received said, “We’ve recorded your number & ask you only text again for legitimate issues.  You’ll be blocked if another fraudulent message is received.  Thank you!”

    I also sent an email to the team on the Diamondbacks website.  If we’re going to call baseball America’s favorite pastime, they should at least get the anthem right.

    The rest of the game was awesome. The Dbacks beat the Pirates 15-6 with 13 runs scored by the Dbacks in one inning.  Go Dbacks!

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  • Is That Legal – Improv AZ Coroner Prank #2

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    Ruth Carter

    Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.  I am a law student.  In accordance with ABA policy, this blog should not be viewed as legal advice.  It is simply my experiences, opinions, and stuff I looked up on the internet.

    Last week the Improv AZ crew decided to revise their world –famous coroner prank, only this time instead of having four people in “coroner” shirts carry a stuffed body bag on the light rail, we took it for a walk through Chandler mall.

    We were hoping to raise a lot of eyebrows and get a lot of double takes and surprised stares of disbelief.  We succeeded in that, but we also spent just enough time in the building to get the attention of mall security.  Not wanting to cause any trouble, we offered to leave.  They refused our offer and called Chandler Police instead.  A mall cop claimed we committed “a dozen felonies.”  The real cop said we could have been charged with disorderly conduct.  In the end, they let us go with a warning and the mall cops banned us from Chandler mall for three months.

    Of course as the group’s CLS, I did my usual research before doing this prank, and after our run in with the law, I rechecked everything.

    What can mall cops really do?

    Mall cops are citizens and can only make citizen arrests.  If they are an agent of the property owner, they can ask people to leave and call law enforcement to arrest them for trespassing if the patrons don’t comply.

    Did we commit trespassing?

    I don’t think so.  Shopping malls open themselves up for members of the public to enter and shop.  We are, in legalese, “invitees.”  If we had been asked to leave by a property owner or their agent and then refused to go, then we would have been trespassing.

    Were we illegally impersonating a government official?

    The way Arizona law is written, we would have to pretend to be a public servant and engage in conduct “with the intent to induce another to submit to [our] pretended official authority or to rely upon [our] pretended official acts” to be charged with impersonation.  We did nothing to assert our authority against any mall patrons or anyone else.

    A mall cop tried to tell us that our fake coroner badges made us guilty of a felony, but anyone looking closely at them would have seen that they were made with someone’s laminator at home.  Our badges had our pictures – mine was my Twitter avatar – and the words “Coroner” and “All Access Pass.”  The mall cop took our badges from us and turned them over to the Chandler police officer.  After looking at them briefly, he gave them back to us.

    FYI – Arizona doesn’t have coroners.  It has medical examiners.

    Did we commit disorderly conduct?

    I think that’s a stretch at best.  Arizona law defines disorderly conduct as engaging in certain behavior “with the intent to disturb the peace or quiet of a neighborhood, family, or person or with the knowledge of doing so.”  The only behavior they could have tried to pin on us was “fighting, violent or seriously disruptive behavior.”   Our conduct could have been considered disruptive, but probably not deserving of being in the same category as violent behavior.  The other behaviors on the list for disorderly conduct didn’t seem to apply since we weren’t making noise, using offensive language, carrying weapons, or preventing business transactions from occurring.

    Could the mall cops make our camera guy prove he’d erased the footage he shot with his phone?

    Mall cops are just civilians so they probably don’t have that authority.  Real cops, however, can search your phone if it’s related to an arrest.  Otherwise, it looks like they’d a search warrant.

    Is it illegal to walk around with a fake dead body?

    I looked through Arizona statutes and didn’t find any laws against having fake dead body.  I find out about some of the things you can’t do with an actual dead body:

    • You can’t move a dead human body with the hopes of abandoning or concealing it.
    • You can’t move a dead body from its grave without authority of law.
    • You can’t steal stuff off or from a dead body.
    • You can’t have sex with a dead body.

    For now the four coroners are banned from Chandler mall.  The mall cop gave each of us a card with the Chandler mall code of conduct on it.  I’d share this list with you (it’s pretty funny) but it’s too long, and surprisingly, Chandler mall doesn’t have it available on their website.

    Related Articles:
    Official Improv AZ Blog: When Mall Cops Swarm – The Coroner Prank #2
    Video: Improv AZ – Coroner Prank 2, “Bob Goes To The Mall”

  • New Adventures – Ladies Paintball

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    Ruth Carter

    Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.  I am a law student.  In accordance with ABA policy, this blog should not be viewed as legal advice.  It is simply my experiences and opinions.

    One of the reasons I started this blog was to entice me to do new things so I’ll have something interesting to write about.

    So this past week the girls and I went to Ladies Night at the paintball field.  Westworld Paintball Adventures has a great deal for women.  Every Friday night ladies play for free, except for the cost of our ammunition.

    My group consisted of four law students, one church friend, and two friends of friends.  When we arrived, the first thing we did was sign our waivers of liability.  Like eager law students, Barbi and I immediately scanned the verbiage for a clause preventing us from altering any of the terms of the contract.  Not seeing one, we immediately started crossing out anything that would release the company from liability for injuries caused by its own negligence.  The other law students in our group, acting like efficient/lazy law students, asked us to read the contract for them and make sure it was ok.  The clerk said it was rare for someone to actually read the waiver before signing it.

    After signing our waivers and buying our ammo, we were issued protective vests, goggles, paintball guns, and team armbands.  We loaded our guns and headed onto the field.  We played five games with another group of teenage girls and a bunch of regulars.  In my first game, I was hit in my goggles.  It didn’t hurt.  I didn’t realize I was hit until I felt that my hair was wet with paint.  I was disappointed that my friends had the real experience of being hit with a paintball.  I wanted the experience too!

    And boy did I get it.

    In the next game I took two hits at point blank range.  One shot hit me on my uncovered neck and the other hit my side just below my arm.  At first I thought my neck was bleeding, but it was just the oily paint running down my skin.  It stung for hours.  One of the clerks said that the bruise on my side will take some time to heal.  I like to think of it as a battle wound.

    During the next few days I had a singing audition, a gala, a prank, and a tweet up.   It was fun telling everyone that the bruise on my neck wasn’t a hickey.

    Photo courtesy of  Merlz Tamondong.