OK, just for fun. Demons get drunk all the time, they don’t care if you get caught and locked up, or if you get into a bar fight, they use your body for what they want and have you suffer the consequences, including hangovers.
But yes there is a spiritual component to all laws.
You are not seriously proposing that you can blame drunk driving on supposed demons possessing your body, are you?
I am under the impression that the 5th Amendment does not apply to the collection of evidence, as opposed to testimony, as explained in this little bit that the Google found for me:
“Schmerber v. California (1966), 384 U.S. 757 – The Fifth Amendment privilege does not extend to the drawing of a blood sample for purposes of chemical analysis. Also see State v. Sapsford (1983), 22 Ohio App. 3d 1 (dental casts, photos, wax impressions).” link
You are free to commit rape and murder at your will in this country! Now, if you do so, you will go to jail for life, but you are free to do as you wish!
See how silly that sounds.
But, Really Not All That Bright, has made a “requirement” test of whether or not jail is involved.
Would it be accurate to say that I am not required to wear a seat belt in Florida as I can choose not to and merely pay the fine and court costs?
I don’t really want to correct you, because I’d be dancing into a little too much legal analysis that is very state law dependent. The odds that some random doper puts what I say to their head, misapplies it, and faces a bad legal outcome is relatively high, and I don’t want to deal with that.
Let’s just put it like this: Many times, people blowing into that little machine on the side of the road are doing so voluntarily.
You really don’t see a difference between losing your license and going to prison?
Well, I thought we were having a debate, but I guess I’ll just have to trust you that I am wrong sans explanation. I’m open to learning why I’m wrong, and correcting my understanding of things, but it’s a bit tough to swallow “OMG shut up you’re so wrong.”
Well, yeah. And I’d suspect that many times that a police officer opens the trunk of a car to find a stash of drugs, he does so with the permission of the driver. I’m not sure how that contradicts anything I said.
Well since you seem to know that, take a look at your Numbers 1, 2, and 3, and re-assess the ordering of events.
And, this debate is trite and base - I’m just randomly commenting from my ivory tower on the trainwreck of legal analysis herein.
Drunk driving is a terrible thing, so terrible that Orwellian anti-drunk driving implied consent laws, and losing your drivers license isn’t really a criminal penalty, laws were enacted. IMHO. YMMV.
How about this question:
At what point do the penalties for noncompliance become so severe as to create a “requirement?”
Again, I believe we’re using different interpretations of the word “required.” Each one is valid, IMHO, but they are not interchangeable.
If a police officer arrests me, I am required to go along. I have no choice in the matter. There is no alternative open to me, as undesirable as it may be, to avoid arrest – even if I am beaten to unconsciousness, I will still end up in cuffs and the pokey. Clearly I am “required” to go along with the officer once arrested.
If the officer asks me to take a breathalyzer, there is indeed a consequence for not doing so. It is entirely legitimate to say that taking a breathalyzer is a requirement for keeping my license, but if I chose not to take the test, I legally have an option that allows an undesirable outcome. (I am setting aside the practicalities that refusing to take the test almost certainly wouldn’t end the investigation of the DUI, it’s not like there’s a magic “get out of jail free” card.) I think of this as a separate kind of requirement.
Let me use a different set of examples. As a pilot, I would be required to keep an up-to-date medical examination card in order to exercise my privileges as a pilot. As a resident of the United States, I am required to file taxes every year. I have chosen not to keep my medical exam current, so I accept that I cannot fly. I have no choice but to file taxes. Therefore, I see the “requirement” that I file taxes as different than the “requirement” that I keep a current medical certificate.
So, you think “Texas” is the correct answer to the question I asked? You don’t think non-compliance is a violation of the law? It is. In Texas there is an “implied consent law”. That means being found guilty of failing to submit to a breathalyzer is a violation of the law. That means complying is a requirement, even if the punishment were only what you would label “administrative.”
Here’s a cite from a Texas lawyer for you:
http://www.austindwilawyer.net/texasdwiimpliedconsent.html
By “undesirable outcome” you mean being found guilty of violating the implied consent law and receiving a punishment for it, right? You don’t “legally have an option” to break the law.
I think it comes down to, don’t drink and drive. Problem solved. I play in a band, so I find myself in bars alot. My wife likes to hear me play, and she likes to dance.
So we decide that when I’m playing I don’t drink, and she can go ahead. If we are out and I’m not playing, I drink, and she’s the DD. Pretty simple.
I sort of got the legal aspects, it is basically to me, the state putting up a unfair double standard because it suits their needs.
Of course, how is a demon suppose to get drunk, it’s not like you see people with demon wings and horns at the bar or waiting on line at the DMV for that matter, they use our bodies. You’ve seen TV and movies and the like with a angel figure on one shoulder and a demon or devil on the other, and the person decides which one to follow. The part left out is that whatever one the person chooses (the angel or demon) becomes ‘one’ with that person for that choice. That person and angel act together as one, or that person and that demon act together as one.
The penalty for getting a DWI, or a bar fight only has to be born by one, as the demon + person are one in that action, so only one has to pay the penalty. So the person gets hurt and the demon has his ‘fun’ safely. This is the nature of demonic possession and why demons desire to possess a body and why it is so evil.
And here’s a cite for what I am saying:
http://www.legalmatch.com/law-library/article/refusing-a-dwi-test-and-implied-consent-in-texas.html
Essentially, that the refusal to take the test will lead to administrative penalties, but depending on the exact circumstances, may be less severe than a DUI criminal conviction.
But for the umpteenth time, the distinction I am drawing in the term “required” is the difference between not having any choice whatsoever in the matter (as in being arrested, put in jail, etc.) or having a choice that may lead to other bad outcomes. I am NOT saying that refusing to take a breathalyzer is completely optional, or free of consequence.
ETA: And I should specifically point out that, according to this citation, “many criminal defense attorneys in Texas” recommend that their clients refuse such a test. I don’t think you will find many attorneys who would recommend, for example, resisting arrest, leading once again to my point that there is a distinction between what is required in terms of things that one has no option at all, versus one has an option between undesirable outcomes.
“OFficer, I can’t consent to take that breathalyzer–I’m too damn drunk.”
I’m not sure why you think that’s a proper rebuttal to my post. You claimed that non-compliance wasn’t a violation of the law in Texas; I showed you that it is. That’s why Texas calls it the “implied consent law”. I also showed you that violating the law is a crime. Your cite shows that it may be wise to violate the law because it may be better than being found guilty of a more serious crime, but there is no claim that there isn’t a law being broken. You inferred that it’s not a violation of the law in Texas in what I quoted you saying at the top of post #52, and when I asked if you believe it’s not a violation of the law, you didn’t answer.
Why are you hung up on the use of “administrative” from this one lawyer’s website? Is that supposed to convince anyone that complying with the law isn’t a requirement because the penalty isn’t more severe? Even if it were just “administrative”, it’s still against the law to refuse and there is of course a punishment for breaking the law.
You have the choice to resist arrest. No, it’s not a legal choice in most cases, but it’s not a legal choice in most cases to refuse the breathalyzer either, even though you are (or were) under the impression that you “legally have an option” to refuse the breathalyzer. Do you now realize you don’t legally have this option? The choice to resist arrest is fundamentally no different than choosing to refuse the breath test. Both are a violation of the law and compliance of the law is required in both cases regardless if not complying with the requirement may have a better outcome in cases of breath test refusal than it will with resisting arrest.
What’s your point? That a lawyer would never tell you to violate the law? Obviously if it means having a good chance of not being found guilty of violating a more serious law, he would.
You can go along with the arrest or resist. You can take the breath test or refuse. There are rare cases where resisting is a good idea and many more where refusing the breath test is a good idea, but in both cases the latter choices is breaking the law.
I do not believe that a lawyer can ever advise you to break the law.
Those bits you’ve seen on television and in the movies about angels and devils sitting on shoulders? Here in Realityland we call that “fiction” written by “hacks” for the “easily amused”. FYI, we tend to ignore “fiction” written by “hacks” when debating law here in Realityland.
I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer and this wasn’t supposed to be about the specific implied consent laws of Texas. One Texas lawyer’s website that I linked to said refusal is a serious crime, others’ make other claims. I’m arguing that if there is a punishment for doing or not doing something, then complying is a requirement regardless of the severity of the penalty, administrative or not.