Thank you for your contributions. I certainly realize that this information is only general and does not apply to the specifics of my case and is not Certified Legal Advice ™. I conceed that I waived my own 4th Amendment Right (stupidly) but I still think that it is wrong, if the claims of the police officer are indeed correct, regarding the rate of successful prosecution based solely upon the testimony of one officer.
Can we all agree that a BAC of .0136 will not lead to red/blood shot eyes, and certainly not an odor of alcohol on the breath? I personally don’t even see a problem if I were to be compelled to take the breathalizer, I will agree that probable cause certainly existed given the circumstances, but I also still feel that the officer lied in actually claiming the above indicators.
Rhum, I think that I have generally decided to follow your advised path. Talk to the person at the DA’s office (not the actual DA of course), see if I can meet in person, explain the details of my situation, point to the low BAC reading, previous record, etc. and see if she is willing to simply drop the charges, maybe in exchange for a little community service, something I really wouldn’t mind if it was for somebody like the DA.
Also, I only asked the lawyer question in pure curiosity. Good luck with the bar exam, etc. Oh, and ironic name given the thread.
C’MON threemae… Admit that you had a beer!!
Just think if ya woulda had a CDL… point .01 does us in!!
In most states .10 is acceptable for most drivers…
I’m not a lawyer, but I would think that the first thing to do is to find out under what statute you are being charged. That seems important to me. Again, I’m not a lawyer, so I may be mistaken on this. Didn’t you get any paperwork in connection with this? A citation? A notice to appear? An arrest warrant? Anything?
As for beating the charge, you could argue that you were coarced into allowing the breathelizer. Also, if the charge is consumption rather than simply presence in the body, you could argue that there is no evidence that you consumed it in that state (don’t know whether this would fly; would help if you’re near a border). But I doubt you’ll get a jury trial; my understanding is that misdeamors have been held to not be “crimes” insofar as the sixth amendment is concerned.
I am still having difficulty actually reaching someone in the DA’s office on any of this, but I think I’ll simply ask for her to dismiss the charges based upon what Rhum has suggested in regards to Social Etiquette 101, and if it fails, just take the damn class.
I don’t want to lie about cough syrup, traveling to another state, my parents, or anything else. And I don’t think that my rights were specificaly violated, I just think the the officer was an ass, and if his claims are untrue, that the system of minor alcohol offenses in my county is unfair, probably in part due to the volume of such offenses faced by the courts (Hint, the name is Boulder and there’s a small liberal arts college there that starts with a C, ends with a U, and recently recieved some props from the Princeton Review). Oh, and the law is a stupid one in the first place, IMHO.
