PA- Streaker’s legal fight bringing notoriety

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6-22-2008 Pennsylvania:

Elizabeth Burke never wanted her 15 minutes of fame like this.

But since the 20-year-old English major from Jamison decided last week to fight the open lewdness charge filed against her by Penn State police stemming from the annual “Mifflin Streak,” she has been fielding interview requests from the press and answering a long list of text messages and telephone calls offering support.

Burke was arrested along with seven male students during this year’s edition of the “Mifflin Streak,” which takes place late at night the

weekend before spring finals. It’s a tradition that goes back decades.

“I’m not trying to make too much of a statement with this,” Burke said. “I’m fighting this because I believe the charge is wrong.”

Burke was charged with the misdemeanor criminal offense of open lewdness, which would not look good when future employers check her background. To be convicted of open lewdness, the commonwealth would have to prove her behavior, in this case, streaking, “affronted or alarmed” someone.

Burke and her attorney, Stacy Parks Miller, argue that no one was affronted or alarmed by her naked run that night. It happened just after midnight May 5, through a 50-foot human tunnel of male and female students on Mifflin Road packed together specifically to see the streakers, they argue.

So, they ask, who was affronted or alarmed?

“It was just a harmless bit of fun and the charge doesn’t apply to the situation,” Burke said. “It just doesn’t apply.”

She was at the “Mifflin Streak” after a spur-of-the-moment conversation with a friend. She wound up a participant the same way, in a spur-of- the-moment, once-in-a-lifetime moment of youthful exuberance.

And she got arrested. When Burke first broke the news to her parents, they laughed about it and chalked it up to a youthful misadventure. They told her she’d have to pay whatever fines she received and do community service.

But then she got the official charges, a misdemeanor criminal offense of open lewdness and a summary disorderly conduct.

They were stunned to learn she would need a criminal defense attorney for what she thought was nothing more than a couple of seconds of silliness to blow off steam before finals.

“That’s when they started to lose their sense of humor,” Burke said of her parents.

She also had to have her mugshot and fingerprints taken for police databases.

Burke now fears her dreams of studying abroad in Rome in the fall are dashed, because a criminal record may prompt Italian authorities “to say, ‘No, we don’t want you here,’ ” she said. So Burke retained the services of Parks Miller, who has a reputation for courtroom tenacity, and the two began their battle last week.

The charge against Burke was bound over for trial after District Judge Thomas Jordan found enough evidence that a crime may have been committed for her to stand trial. But in a rare move at the preliminary hearing level, Jordan had to deliberate for a time before ruling.

Next, Parks Miller said she will file motions in Centre County Court asking a judge to dismiss the charge. Parks Miller said the Centre County District Attorney’s Office cannot offer anyone to say they were “affronted or alarmed” by Burke’s streak and therefore, it must be dismissed.

Parks Miller stressed that she is not arguing that all streaking is acceptable and, if this had happened in downtown State College in broad daylight, she would not be making this argument. But Burke’s incident is unique and the charge against her does not apply, Parks Miller said.

Until a ruling is handed down, Burke is dealing with her accidental celebrity that began after her case was reported in the Centre Daily Times.

“I had absolutely no idea it was going to cause such a ruckus,” she said. “There was a TV news crew outside my house when I got home. I gave an interview in the drive. I’m getting texts from people I haven’t heard from since high school.”

She’s also taken solace in the groundswell of support she’s received from the Penn State, Centre County and her hometown communities. She has read the more than 15 pages of comments that piled up below her story on CentreDaily. com and even posted a “thank you” to well wishers.

“I love that I have so much support from people,” Burke said. “I’m pretty excited the community has come out and supported me and said this was just a bit of harmless fun. We didn’t hurt anyone or offend anyone.”

But if she had to do again, Burke said she would have kept her clothes on that night. A friend told her the police were there only to make sure streakers did not leave that tightly contained area.

“I guess I should have checked my sources. Knowing the ruckus it would cause, and I meant no disrespect to the community or Penn State, but if I had known the police were quite serious about coming down on this and arresting people, I wouldn’t have done it,” she said.

Burke’s prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Steve Sloane, was not in the office Friday afternoon and his cell phone went to voice mail, which was full.

But last week, he and District Attorney Michael Madeira said that youthful indiscretion or not, the law is the law and they are sworn to uphold it.

It does not matter that perhaps no one at the Mifflin Streak that night was offended, Sloane said. The chance was there that someone may have happened upon the scene and been affronted by the conduct, Sloane said.

Authorities cannot simply surrender a section of public street to lawlessness once a year before spring finals, Madeira said.

Of the eight people arrested at this year’s streak, Burke is the only one so far to fight the open lewdness charge.

The others have accepted plea bargains or sought entry into a first-time offenders program that will eventually see the charges dismissed and expunged from their records. One other has not yet had a preliminary hearing. ..News Source.. by Pete Bosak