srothstein wrote:JP171,
Unless I misunderstand your post, I think we are all in agreement (well, you, me, and the others you mentioned) on the difference between the sign being posted being enough and the sign actually having been seen. The law says the sign must be conspicuously posted and the court will use the reasonable man test. But, if you did not see the sign because you were distracted or sleepy or some similar reason, you will be found guilty if the reasonable man would have seen the sign.
Sugar Land Dave (and others concerned with teaching hospitals),
I just wanted to point out that this is just conventional wisdom and not the law. The law does not mention a teaching hospital as off-limits other than as a hospital. The legal problem is that the law does not adequately define what is a school. Is a teaching hospital a school or not under the law? In this forum, we cannot all agree on exactly what is a school. I think most administrators of a teaching hospital would claim it as a school, for several reasons (taxes and guns being just two). I also am confident that most of us would not see most teaching hospitals as schools, unless they were directly affiliated with the university that ran them.
One confusing example might be the VA hospital in San Antonio. Last time i was down in that area, the University of Texas had an agreement with the county hospital system to use the county hospital for part of its teaching duties. They even renamed the hospital to University Hospital (though it is owned and operated by the county). But the hospital also had an agreement with the VA hospital across the street to jointly provide services. There was even a tunnel under the street to connect the two hospitals. Many of the student doctors and nurses pulled shifts in the VA hospital. I don't think any court would consider the VA hospital a school, and I am not even sure they would the county hospital, despite its name. But I would not want to bet on it and I would stay clear of the VA hospital since it is federal anyway.
Steve,
I think we are probably on the same page as far as conspicuous, but my interpretation is probably a little more broad than yours as I think not seeing it because it was blocked makes in not conspicuous enough and being tired/sleepy also does the same. I tend to believe that if it can be hidden by casual leaning to keep the door up or the wall up it is suspect in its intent to create a violation by the mere fact of placement or coloration that does not draw the attention easily.
As far as teaching hospitals I do not think that they meet the common definition of a school and therefore are never automatically off limits. Think of it like this A teaching hospital normally has no classrooms as we define them commonly, baby docs do medical work as a Doctor and not just observe and take notes, they do in fact do differential diagnoses under the supervision of a licensed MD. Most teaching hospitals are not part of a school but under a contractual agreement to provide MD's to complete the baby docs education for clinical experience. almost all hospitals have interns and interns are still considered a student even though most have taken and passed the medical examiners board for GP MD's I spent the equivalent of 1 year as a intern/resident during my time becoming a paramedic with advanced skills for sutures/ field expedient surgical and ATLS. I did clinical rotations at several hospitals here in Texas including Ben Taub, Hermann and UTMB as well as a couple in Florida, some of them were teaching hospitals but none are considered schools