http://now.msn.com/dillan-warden-3-fined-dollar2500-for-public-urination

Those crazy americans, ya gotta love 'em :)

EDIT Thanks wpegg.

An unfortunate time to get those two letters back to front... You american then?

Nice catch mate! :) I Have a sprained wrist, which, when combined with a brain fart, produces drivel like that :)

We don't have full details. Was this the first incident? And, despite the news description of their yard as "rural," were there neighbors who simply saw a young boy running around half-naked in public? If so, was he supervised at the time? We also don't know how the family interacted with the police officer who arrived on the scene. Perhaps he asked them to remove the boy and give them a chance to come away without the issuance of a citation, was given a hard time, and then decided to issue the fine?

Lots of details left out, and it just leads to hypothetical guessing on the part of the reader. This is poor reporting

EDIT: Source article, with more quotes from the family:
http://www.news9.com/story/20010769/three-year-old-piemont-boy-gets-2500-ticket-for-peeing-in-his-front-yard

And still no comment from the police department, so it remains a rather one-sided take on the matter.

One guy in Florida publicly urinated in 1980s when he was drunk. Few years ago laws passed that public urination is a sex offense, so he was added to sex offender registry. So after more than 20 years after his "crime" he was thrown out of his home, because sex offenders have no right to leave near to (less than 1km or something) schools/parks.

don't break the law fellas. it aint fair and it will crush you.

America is stupid is what it boils down too. I lived in Florida for thirty years and silly laws like this were tossed around all the time meanwhile murders and robberies were just shrugged off. Florida police liked to police anyone for anything as long as they were sure their target didn't have a firearm.

Here in Zealand we've a pissing law that dates back to the 18th century that states that if we must go in public, if at all possible it is acceptable to go on the rear left wheel of any parked and nearby wagon.

So basically you can have a piss on the rear left tire of someone's Camero if you have to go bad enough. XD

Sounds insane, but it's true - http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2007-03-21/news/VOFFENDER21_1_matamoros-deltona-incident According to his sex offender card, now he is in jail, because he failed to comply sex offender registration.

Whipping out your dick in public can be classified as indecent exposure, in some states. It's pretty stupid, and in practice, most police wouldn't actually do it (I live in a college town; if everyone who got drunk and pissed in an alley was classified as a sex offender ...), but it's there.

This is so wrong... Destroy somebody's life because many years ago he urinated in public... It goes far beyond my imagination.

The law here is basically even older than that. It states that "If a person should not survive the urination on or at a specific object, be it because of a lethal application from another person(s) or of other means (electric shock, avalanche, bear attack), then he/she was probably not OK to go there".

Since when is somebody's private property considered public?

Ha ha! A smart ass way of saying 'If you have to go, go but use enough common sense to not get yourself killed in the process." XD
From my understanding everything outside of your property is claimed and owned by someone else.

Quite frankly I don't think most people would expect someone to critically injure themselves by retaining urine just as long as the spot to piss shows sound judgement and discretion.

That guy in Florida - That's what we would call a setup. Someone wanted him out of the way for some other reason and grasped at straws trying to find any way they could to incriminate him.

There's a difference between being on public property and being "in public." You can't be naked on your front lawn, for instance, because you're still in open view of the whole neighborhood. You can be naked in your backyard if you've got a high fence or hedge, and you can be naked indoors as long as you aren't standing in front of a window.

If you want total and complete privacy on your property, you basically have to make a giant opaque magnetically-sealed dome over it.