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  • Posted by term2 8 years, 7 months ago
    I think that there is no justification for DUI at all unless someone's right to his own life or property is violated. Therefore, DUI laws as written should be unconstitutional, and it doesnt matter whether the car was in the driveway or on the street.

    This is another in the long line of victimless crimes which shouldnt be crimes at all.
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    • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 7 months ago
      I'm with you. The law should not be banning any action merely because it "just might" lead to someone getting hurt. And DUI laws, as well as gun regulations, are among the worst in this respect.

      If a guy actually goes out and drives drunk, and a cop gets video of him weaving all over the road, then go ahead and arrest him for reckless driving. But the mere fact of alcohol in his bloodstream doesn't necessarily predict how badly he will drive -- even if he intended to drive at all.
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      • Posted by plusaf 8 years, 7 months ago
        Funny, jdg... but that's one of the same argument that I and many other Law Anti-HB2 in NC make!
        ... the "just might happen" rationale in the absence of actual historical events in a quantity that indicates real risk to anyone!

        Ah, but that's a whole 'nother discussion... :)
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      • Posted by term2 8 years, 7 months ago
        I think the origin of the DUI laws was religious. But its now a BIG money maker for everyone, and is unlikely to be repealed anytime soon unfortunately.
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        • Posted by CircuitGuy 8 years, 7 months ago
          "I think the origin of the DUI laws was religious."
          It still has a religious feel to it. If you say we go overboard demonizing this one risky behavior, some people react like it's blasphemy. I knew someone who was convicted of driving slightly over the BAC limit. She was so hard on herself. I said it's certainly not a good thing to do, but I think we go overboard condeming it. She started telling me I was insensitive to the lives put at risk, she was so thankful she got caught, and she condemned any drunk driving apologists. Okay. I kind of got the feeling she wanted to impute other misanthropic feelings on this one issue, in an original sin way.
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          • Posted by term2 8 years, 7 months ago
            She must also condemn having screaming babies in the car, drinking soda poo forms finales while driving, and driving while tired. All of those things COULD RESULT in an accident. In fact driving at all could possibly result in injury, so an argument could be made to forbid driving at all
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
        My big objection is treating it as an administrative problem and not a legal problem whiich means...refuse test the license is administratively revoked. Then it goes to less exacting and very much so subjective tests, touch nose walk line etc. smell of alcohol on breath on my face as the individual spoke to me etc. I experienced a failure rate of one in three years following the procedure but sometimes had people chauffered home. Another had just taken new medications the doctor had not mentioned side affects. the test came up zero percent. As arresting officer I requested the charges be dropped. Judge concurred.

        the one failure was a falsified charge sheet where i had listed reckless driving damage, injuries, no deaths. The sheet had been changed to DUI. No way to prove that. Before I got to him other people had given him several stiff drinks. after incident before BAT. So? Went to Internal Affairs....I don't call that a happy ending ..oh well win some, lose some, some people are indeed dirty. including that one percent on the police forces.

        Anyone reading this who was there at the time will know exactly what and whom I'm talking about.
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        • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 7 months ago
          The lack of due process is indeed a problem. But the law as it stands does not demand anyone comply with so-called field sobriety tests, and I will always refuse to do them. They're bogus and can only harm your case. The "implied consent law" covers only chemical tests.
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    • Posted by $ jbrenner 8 years, 7 months ago
      I agree with your point, but remember that a driver's license is a privilege granted by government, not a constitutional right. Consequently, driving privileges can also be taken away by government.
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      • Posted by term2 8 years, 7 months ago
        True enough and if the roads were privately owned, the owners could put any restrictions on their use that they wanted. I suppose they could restrict road usage to whit people or non gay people if they wanted. I don't think they could imprison or fine you or forbid you to drink at all like the government does
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
          i grew up on 150 acres. To get to the property one had to pass through two rather large privately owned ranches. Yet every level of government made a point of demonstrating their uncontestable right to trespass. BLM was one of them . It got then to within 500 feet of their announced goal. instead they had to go five miles around and come in from the other side. To win their claim it meant bull dozing one house and two barns all of which had been there for over a hundred years. That didn't phase them in the least. But the contract with the BLM signed earlier int he 1900's i guess when it was formed and a call to the Congressman stopped the harassment. Mind you this was real private land. ha ha ha. County, State, Federal all claimed rights to cross into or across the property. We finally graded a road around the edge of the property line and put up a sign - Government Road. Far as I know that pot hole chuck hole POS still may exist. I repeat in the eyes of the government we are renters at best but most often squatters with no rights at all. Know what? In truth? They are right. But not with my vote.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
        that's where administrative comes in instead of criminal charges. Another problem is no fault. No Fault automatically means both parties COULD have been guilty so the insurance rates go up.

        Never accept No Fault if you are good to go in court. In the long run an attorney is less expensive.
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  • Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years, 7 months ago
    Yes they did. Just like on a golf course or race track, private property is not a public road, and DUI, turn signals, registration and any DOT regulations are VOID! No different than driving a lawn mower, tractor or golf cart! The question is who was the "1" idiot judge ruling against?
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
      Where did you get the crazy idea that your drive way was private property or off limits to public officials in the performance of their duty. LMFAO How droll. Where did you get the idea that you definition of private property means anything to the left?
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      • Posted by $ Thoritsu 8 years, 7 months ago
        Crazy, I am. The only question is "Is this an example of it?"

        I actually think this and smoking weed in your own house would appeal to the left if they were made to think about it.

        It just doesn't appeal to the masses when they are in lynching-mode.
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  • Posted by $ puzzlelady 8 years, 7 months ago
    I suspect the "driver" was harassed because his loud noise had annoyed his neighbor and the cops were pissed off to be called for the third time. The moving of the vehicle into and out of the garage was just a pretext for the cops to nab him. Being a public nuisance was the main offense; the 25 feet of vehicle moved was just the technicality. I wonder what they would have done if he'd just sat in his driveway in a lawn chair. I suspect that he moved the car into the garage after the loud music complaint but then realized that running the engine in that closed space could kill him with fumes (a sobering thought). So he decided to take it back out. Anyway, I wonder how the cops determined that he was drunk? What gave them the right to go on his property in the first place? This could not have been the first incident of neighborly friction. The strategy would have been to invite those neighbors to the party, too.
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    • Posted by term2 8 years, 7 months ago
      Sounds like a good enough scenario to be believed. Its unlikely we will ever KNOW the facts, but there is so much money involved in DUI that I am 99% sure that the cops were just using technicalities to arrest him and collect the fine money, feed the lawyers who defended him, and paid the court fees and other costs. Everyone wins except the defendant, who gets to fund all this nonsense.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
      What gave them the right? The people of the USA voted in a group called congress and that group voted in those laws and civics 101
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      • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 7 months ago
        Who let this statist in?
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
          Ha ha ha in my day they called us Constitutionalists. Is that how the left is going to destroy the next definition?

          What a joke. An illiterate marginalizer
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          • Posted by $ jdg 8 years, 7 months ago
            The Constitution does not confer moral rightness on (nor a duty on anybody to obey) all legislation that complies with it. It is a set of limits that government officials are sworn to obey, but everyone also has the intrinsic duty to respect the natural rights of everyone else. Those must come first.
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  • Posted by MinorLiberator 8 years, 1 month ago
    I concur with the court. I know of many cases where the police take liberties with their in DUI cases.

    The worst I've heard of is a friend who went to the mall with his wife. He had "too many" at lunch and gave the keys to his wife. He returned to the car while she did more shopping. A local cop spotted him, determined he was over the limit, and charged him with "intent to drive intoxicated". His wife returned with the keys, sober, and explained she was going to drive, but he was still taken in, booked and convicted.

    It's possible he had an attitude with the cop, but that's not a crime either.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
    Per the law where I served as a police officer inserting a key never mind turning it on showed intent to drive and if DUI or DWI at the time qualified as a DUI/DWI charge. the one and only main reason we asked for the ignition keys. A night in the drunk tank was better than a seeing the Judge on one of those charges.
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    • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
      We often took the the route left open to street police of protecting citizens while not ruining the lives of individuals. All our clientele were military or civilian government employees or their family members.

      Accordingly we wielded an extreme amouont of power. Something as simple as the date to appear which could be any date we street police chose. within a certain amount. Before, on, or after a payday often made a difference. Deciding who to charge and with what. A speeding military vehicle operator given orders to drive faster by a senior officer often resulted in a warning for the driver and an arrest for the offending officer. The charge was misprision of office - a felony. Back to the DUI or DWI amazing how many cold not remember where they parked the automobile the next day. We were able to divert the real problem people into various programs on many occasions. On the other hand when it was truly deserved we could exhibit no mercy at all.

      Officers with the least accident rates including those involving passengers and ambulance calls invariably wrote the most warning tickets
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      • Posted by Bethesda-gal 8 years, 7 months ago
        M.A.,
        were u an MP ? Or just worked somewhere that much of the population was military or govt ?Just curious.
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        • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
          Panama Canal Zone. We had the CZ Company which ran the canal and the CZ Government which iprovided the rest of our version of Americana. I was in the CZP which like the other three federal police agencies of those times were - for the most part - local street and neighborhood police. The others were Washington DC Police, Bureau of Indian Affairs Police, and White House Police. We had two Magistrates one each for the north and south sides of the zone and one higher if memory serves. Appeals went to the District that handles New Orleans etc. We had police powers over the entire zone including the military police who were limited to uniformed military only. Off post or if a dependent, employee or any form of civilian was involved we were the only police that counted. In sixty some years we lost one officer to a motorcycle accident. We also had a Bush Patrol for the interior of the zone, and worked with Immigration and Customs and when one of the Judges needed something or in prisoner transfer. Other than that we were Officer Friendly always present at school bus time.
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          • Posted by Bethesda-gal 8 years, 7 months ago
            How interesting !! I never would have known / thought about all those different levels of policing !
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            • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
              Here's another. Traffic stop. You the police officer have no probable cause to search the entire vehicle. Glove box is out of reach, Nothing in view but you have a 'feeling.'

              Driver is offered a a blood alcohol test the smell of alcohol is evident which means an alcoholic type beverage as alcohol has no smell.

              While that is in progress the vehicle is impounded and moved to a secure location. Now it is the responsibility of the police department along with all contents a video is made of the now open glove box and the trunk. Also any car rental style scratches or dents. a paint flake comes loose. Sent to the lab for matchup on anything pending. That's fishing. but in the trunk a box of various pharmaceuticals and powders is plainly seen along with a shot gun and two pistols. These taken into custody and fingerprinted with serial numbers run. and so on. Driver brought back from the hospital and the BAT. Zero but the small tallied with an open bottle that had spilled. It is finger printed. Normal arrest procedures follow including the all important Miranda Escobedo warnings.

              On the other hand nothing is found and a warning issued concerning the open and now empty bottle ....

              Just a rough idea but the key is gain legal access to the vehicle and the key to that is impound or removed for safety of the vehicle on behalf of the owner. Probable Cause is or is not established.

              In road side stops consistency is required. One does not stop one car but a series of cars. Easy enough. A bend in the road with an increase in speed limit will always find Fifty percent setting off the speed gun.

              They are all checked to the same extent. Reason. Around the next bend is a school area and it's time for departure to home - for the students. Traffic has been getting complaints from worried parents.

              The new system skips all that and goes for 'mere suspicion' without anything else. required.

              Some of the ways to legally press the limits without violating civil rights.versus the new Obama Cause lack of requirement for any reason whatsoever with no civil rights needed after the arrest.

              85 Senators voted for Obama Lite Rites or is it Last Rights with no limits on who, when, where, why, how or What's Up? So did a majority of Representatives.

              Reason....They wanted to get home early? They didn't read the entire bill? It's in the omnibus funding bill that took headlines crowing about the government not being shut down. No and it never was and never will be. But your civil rights were shot to shit.

              Still going to vote for them again?

              Do they use that. Maybe yes maybe no but it's now legal to arrest on 'suspicion of terrorism or support of terrorism. What defines terrorism? Mere suspicion.
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    • Posted by Donald-Brian-Lehoux 8 years, 7 months ago
      Peter a night in the drunk tank than in front of the judge, yep. If he was in his drive way why the drunk tank why not in his home? Also in HIS drive means you trespassed, Violated due process by not having a complaining party. Hagans v Lavine, The law requires proof of jurisdiction to appear on the record of the administrative agency and all administration proceedings,” I was MP. If we must obey the law so should you.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
        To keep his wife from beating him up. He was safer there than in the house. The major categories of crime were theft/burglary, household disputes and violence, DUI/DWI just another corner of middle Americana. Our jail population went up from Thanksgiving to Christmas because of the menu (50% unemployment in Panama itself). Prison sentences also offered school's in carpenters, plumbers, electrician, welders. They were popular. I had one arrest where the guy broke in the post office glass door with a two by four and then assumed the position and recited the rights card. He had done three of four and couldn't find work so went back for meals and training as a welder. Biggest problem was paying somebody to get a job and then to get paid and then to get the money to a bank or some safe area from the bank. It was interesting...

        When our jobs left along with the Carter Church Kennedy I declined to work in the same field and went back into the military (infantry) where it was safer.
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      • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
        MP were never considered to be real police officers.I can tell by your level of explanation the level of your training. One of the main reasons where civilians were concerned civil police automatically took jurisdiction. The finer points of the law without violating someones civil rights were just a touch beyond the abilities of kiddy cops. Jack Reacher is fictional. I cannot and will not answer for everyone local police department. That's the responsibility of the voters in the that jurisidiction. I suspect they got what they asked for same as political representation.
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        • Posted by Donald-Brian-Lehoux 8 years, 7 months ago
          I neve thought I could be insulted, MP not real police? Gee I wonder how all the people in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan doing police work would say about that? When I was in Iraq they were told it is police work.
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          • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 8 years, 7 months ago
            Beats me maybe the ones assigned to duty in the old Panama Canal Zone were the bottom of each class. Of course the one's assigned to Fort Bragg NC were even worse. But then I never counted people in such jobs as soldiers to begin with, nor the clerks or other sorts of wanna be never wills.
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            • Posted by Donald-Brian-Lehoux 8 years, 7 months ago
              WOW. I tested so high I could have been anything and was even selected as a criptologoist . However it was determined that I am partially color blind, reds and greens, so I went from everything to 4 choices; clerk, cook, cop, and air traffic controller and I didn't know what that was at the time or I would have chosen that.
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    • Posted by scojohnson 8 years, 7 months ago
      That policy ignores the geographic diversity of the country. For example, I've been looking at houses in Southern Idaho with 40-80 acres. If I want to drive around with my 4x4 enjoying a Corona on my own property, I see no harm in that, nor should society.
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