PLEASANT GAP, Pa. — As an American, you have the right to mow your lawn in the nude, a state superior court has ruled.

Charlie Stitzer, 63, won’t let bashfulness get in the way of donning a thong or completely dropping his trousers in his backyard on a hot summer night. It is a matter of comfort. But for one neighbor, Stitzer’s naked lolling was too much. The neighbor contacted authorities in June 2000, and Stitzer was arrested for indecent exposure. He was found guilty seven months later and sentenced to two years of probation.

But after months of legal wrangling, three superior court judges overturned the conviction in a unanimous decision last week, ruling that the state’s indecent exposure statute did not apply to Stitzer because the unmarried retiree was not exposing himself in a public place or drawing attention to himself. The judges also said that the backyard was private and that the complaining neighbor lived too far away, nearly 65 yards.

“This was a matter of civil liberties,” Stitzer’s lawyer, Andrew Shubin, told Court TV. “If someone had a problem with [Stitzer], they could avert their eyes or give him a call and complain. But there was absolutely no need for the government to get involved in this.” Assistant District Attorney Lance Marshall said he won’t appeal the ruling, but noted that he had the option to prosecute Stitzer in the future for a lesser disorderly conduct charge.

BESSEMER, Ala. — A burglar’s plan to rob the Bob Sykes BarB-Q backfired when he got stuck in the restaurant’s vent shaft and came within a match of being barbecued alive.

On March 19, Sykes cook Alonzo Scott arrived for work at about 4:30 a.m. and was startled by a muffled voice. Scott first thought it was a co-worker outside, but rejected that idea when he saw a pair of blue-and-white Reeboks dangling from above the hamburger grill.

Scott asked the man if he was ok. The man, hot and on the verge of fainting, asked for help getting out.

The man, who stands 5-foot-7 and weighs 190 pounds, had climbed onto the roof using maintenance ladders in the back of the building. He had been stuck in the 10-foot-tall, 1-foot-wide vent for three hours.

Scott called 911 after unsuccessful attempts at freeing the man from the roof end of the vent. Firefighters were able to extract the would-be thief using a rope. The man was wedged so tightly that his pants came off as he was pulled out, said Sargent Bill Byess of the Bessemer Police Department.

Sampson Dearman, 25, was charged with third-degree burglary. Sykes employees, who were left with Dearman’s pants and the pink bicycle he rode to the restaurant, said that there was no money in the restaurant at the time.

FRANKLIN, N.J. — The supermarket stinks! Or it did one day early this month when two middle-aged pranskters released an unpleasant odor in the produce aisle.

Geremino Ranallo, 65, and Warren Jacoby, 50, were arrested last year after they allegedly polluted a suburban ShopRite supermarket with flatulent spray. The aging pranksters were convicted of disorderly conduct on March 19, fined $500, and given the option of spending a month in jail or performing 90 days of community service, according to a Warren County municipal court clerk.

Authorities said the putrid stench, described as being like sulfur or rotten eggs, drove away dozens of customer last May and even caused a store clerk to vomit. Employees were able to track the noxious gas to the produce aisle where the nonchalant duo were found carrying several cans of “fart spray” and a “fart machine.”

“I don’t want to be known as the fart guy,” Ranallo said, after Judge Joseph Steinhardt sentenced the two.