Original Article Prankster planning crime wave Briton targeting only weird laws Shelley Emling Cox News Service Mar. 3, 2005 12:00 AM LONDON - Richard Smith is a British criminal mastermind who freely admits to planning a major crime spree across 26 U.S. states this summer. But Americans need not be overly worried. It's only the weird laws he plans to break. Smith, 23, said he will try to avoid police detection as he hunts whales in landlocked Utah and utters the words "oh boy" in Jonesboro, Ga. He will also skirt the law by playing golf on the streets of Albany, N.Y., and appearing in public in Miami wearing a strapless gown. "My favorite law is the one banning the hunting of whales in Utah, because you couldn't catch a whale there no matter how hard you tried," said Smith, a journalism student at Cornwall College. Smith will set off in late July from Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay along with his partner in crime, fellow student Luke Bateman, 20. Their 18,000-mile journey likely will take eight weeks to complete and will wind up in Hartford, Conn., where it is illegal to cross the road while walking on one's hands. "I had actually hoped someone would try to talk me out of this idea, but so far everyone thinks it's a stupid - but great - thing for me to spend my summer doing," Smith said. Inspiration for the criminal crusade came while Smith was playing a board game called Balderdash with a 12-year-old neighbor. It included details of a law that forbids widows in Florida from going parachuting on Sundays. "I knew I couldn't break that one, but I became really interested in why all of these odd laws are on the books," he said. Smith began researching America's strangest laws and came up with his favorite 40. "If I was going to break as many laws as possible I could break about 300, because there are just so many silly laws," he said. "But things like spitting on the sidewalk are too easy, and I can actually see why that kind of law is on the books. Spit is disgusting." Not all of the laws are going to be easy to run afoul of. For example, Smith said that it is illegal to drive around the town square in Oxford, Miss., more than 100 times on a single occasion. "There are no (traffic circles), so this could take a while," he said. It also might be tough to fall asleep in a cheese factory in South Dakota.