Ignorance (in) the law — particularly in this case — is no excuse

Here is the kind of verdict that leaves me completely flummoxed.

A jury today here in Beaumont, of the Texas variety, sentenced suspended state trooper Jonathan Barnett to six months in jail and fined him $10,000 for running a family business that operates illegal gaming machines. Documents listed Barnett, 32, as president of a family-owned novelty machine company raided by authorities in 2007. The machines owned and leased by the company included so-called “eight-liners.” These are essentially slot machines which businesses award winning customers who play with cash.

Barnett, a trooper since 2001, testified that he began phasing out his oversight of the company to his mother after becoming a highway patrol officer. He also denied knowing the machines had been used for gambling. Jurors found Barnett guilty of engaging in organized criminal activity. Due to the gambling charges involved in the alleged activity, Barnett could have been sentenced to a maximum of two years in prison, according to local media reports.

So why am I flummoxed at this verdict, you might ask? He was found guilty. He was a state trooper he should have known better. Right and right. Thus is the reason for my bewildered state.

Was this man stupid, arrogant, greedy or all the above?

Local and state law enforcement, including Barnett’s soon to be former employer the Texas Department of Public Safety, continually make local headlines with bust of eight-liner arcades across the state. State laws in the mid-1990s provided the so-called “fuzzy animal” exception which allows a machine to pay out a non-cash prize for a play of $5 value or 10 times the cost of play, whichever is less.  Most cash prizes awarded illegally are done on the sly, which often necessitates undercover police operations to bust the eight-liner operators and owners.

In short, a Texan can’t walk down the street without being hit on the head by media reports of proud local law enforcers showing off the gambling machines they busted and money seized in the raids. Since I have seen cops of all stripe gambling illegally in all manners perhaps short of slot machines, and have even gambled with cops before, I don’t believe their fervor for busting eight-liners is rooted in religion or moral repugnance. Perhaps it has something to do with the money seized in the raids that go to the various police agencies. Could that be it? Surely not.

What irritates me the most about the Barnett case is the blemish he causes for the agency that employed him. In general terms, I have had more respect for the Texas Highway Patrol than any other law enforcement agency. Maybe he is just a bad apple or an ignoramus. He is not the only one I have seen in the DPS nor will he be the last. But the fact is eight-liner gambling is a very high-profile offense, though hardly the stuff of Baby Face Nelson, and this now convicted and sentenced former state trooper should have steered clear of his family ties to the “novelty” gaming business when he decided to don the gray suit and cowboy hat of the DPS.

I also feel that someday “real” slot machines will be tumbling their fruit in certain sectors of the Lone Star State. That is, if the money bagged folks who want gambling in Texas can outspend and outwit those who already operate casinos in neighboring states.  When that happens, and I believe it will, the eight-liners will be a relic of times past. Then, people like former trooper Barnett will be convicted felons despite the diminished nature of the crime.

Talk about your dumb crimes. This one rates way on up there.