[moderating]
This looks a whole lot more like a debate than a question, so I’m moving this thread from General Questions to Great Debates.
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This just shows that as in the 19th century, we are still trying to get the government to respect our constitutional rights.
Asset forfeiture is another big one, where property is taken without due process.
That’s a pretty catchy phrase, and I suppose it does what it’s meant to do: persuade the listener that DUI cases are treated differently.
But they’re really not. The courts make a distinction between physical evidence and testimonial evidence. The Fifth Amendment says that no person “…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself…” This means exactly what it says: that the government cannot make you be a witness – that is, provide testimony. But providing physical evidence is different, and it’s not just limited to DUI cases. For example, let’s imagine a rape suspect. He can be compelled, by force, to submit to a DNA test if there is probable cause to believe he committed the crime. But he can never be compelled to testify in the case against him.
So, too, a drunk driving suspect can be – essentially – compelled to provide a breath sample if there is probable cause to believe he’s committed the crime of driving while intoxicated.
Indeed, if the government couldn’t compel a breath test, why do you think the government can compel fingerprints? These are taken routinely after an arrest, and are just as incriminating if the police already have fingerprints from a crime scene to match against the ones taken. In fact, fingerprints are more incriminating, since once the police have your fingerprints, they keep them forever and may use them to identify your presence at some future crime scene. But no one wails disconsolately about the “fingerpad exception to the Constitution.”
Excellent point Bricker… I just read an amusing case study where a guy was pulled over recently. He had, I believe, a back tail-light out but had also been drunk while driving. But the approaching officer didn’t know this. During the pause between when the guy was pulled over and when the cop actually came up to the driver side window, the suspect grabbed a fifth of vodka and proceeded to openly drink it!
After he was arrested for DUI the man’s defense was novel, but ultimately doomed to failure. His defense was that the cop had no indication of WHEN he actually started drinking! He lost the case, but it just goes to show how some people, in the heat of the moment, will conjure up imaginative defenses.
I agree that this is along their lines of reasoning, but I think it’s God awful. This seems roughly equivalent to saying that, in a state where concealed carry is illegal, that concealed weapons are an immediate threat to public safety, thus police in that state ought to be able to have concealed carry checkpoints, right?
Similarly, to carry over Bricker’s fingerprint analogy… assuming it could be done in roughly the same amount of time, what if cops had a fingerprint checkpoint and were scanning everyone’s fingerprints as they drove through a certainpoint to see who is a criminal?
I have no problem with a cop pulling me over and checking my sobriety if there’s good reason to think I was drunk, but simply for being at a certain place at a certain time just doesn’t make any sense. Drunk driving is dangerous, but harrassing people that aren’t breaking the law isn’t a good way to go about solving the problem.
Blaster Master… I hear you brother. You just demonstrated an excellent case of pointing out the inherent dangers of setting unjust legal precedents.
That has been known to happen, hasn’t it? I think the comedians make jokes about being arrested for “driving while black”.
So let’s see…
Driving means you are automatically a suspect? Depending on the time of day or time of night or whatever arbitrary nonsense will work. No need to have probable cause or “reason for suspicion”.
If you decline to take “the test” you are automatically guilty. So much for “presumption of innocense”
If you have to go to court you have no right to a jury. So much to “right to trial by a jury of peers”.
So you can be stopped arbitrarily, subject to search or “inspection” or “test”, you are assumed guilty, and don’t even get a proper trial?
No, nothing wrong here. :rolleyes:
This needs to be changed. For many people in this country, not being able to drive is equal to not being able to earn a living. If I lost my driver’s license, I would lose my job and my house, but that is to be treated as a privilege? The idea that people would have needed a license to ride a horse or in a carriage a hundred years ago would have been laughable.
So what else can the government arbitrarily decide is a privilege and take away on a whim? Walking? Eating? Swimming?
It’s time that our legislators acknowledged this and made driving a right which can only be taken away by due process of law. The alternative only serves to make citizens give up cherished rights and be subservient to the authorities so that their “privilege” of driving isn’t taken away on a whim.
But in those cases, an accused can retain counsel and argue in front of a judge why there is not a sufficient reason to allow the tests. In a DUI, since time is of the essence, you have a cop telling you that you have to do it, and you have to do it. No lawyer, no Miranda, no hearing before a judge.
The comparison is apt. If I was accused of rape and murder, the cops would need a warrant for my DNA. If I am accused of DUI, any corrupt cop can demand it.
As stated above, losing your license and having checkpoints to do so is within the right of the State, however the checkpoints which will condemn you as a criminal with no right to trial goes above and beyond the law.
THIS is why you always refuse the breath test. Any decent attorney can get you off if you refuse any and all testing. Yes, you lose your license. Yes, you spend the night in jail.
How often do they are have they forcefully compelled evidence from someone, specifically from someone who is later found not guilty?
This seems to be procedure that would incite a lawsuit.
But your DNA doesn’t change. The cops have time to get a warrant, and you have time to argue about it. If it takes a week, no problem; your DNA is still there.
Your BAC, on the other hand, must be collected right then.
But you can still go in front of a judge and argue that the collection was improper, and if the judge agrees, the evidence will be suppressed. So what’s the problem?
Your DNA is not going to vanish; booze in your system will. There has always been a warrant exception (when supplemented by probable cause) for fleeting evidence.
An exception to the rule strikes again! But Kimmy’s right. To prove the State’s case against the accused, time is of THE UTMOST essence in collecting a breath sample.
This is why, on the surface, it appears you are denied your basic rights, in the interest of getting said sample. (The basic right to not incriminate yourself, for example.)
It’s not an exception to the Fourth Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable search and seizure. You seem to think of it as some sort of headstart rule for criminals. General, vigilant law enforcement is not unconstitutional, no matter how much you wish the behavior at issue weren’t criminalized.
Fortunately, we live in a democracy. So instead of pretending that the Constitution prohibits any and allpolitical judgments and their corresponding laws and regulations that you dislike, you are free to lobby your legislature. Now, if you can’t get the votes—and drunk driving isn’t a very popular cause—well, that’s the social contract for you! (Somewhere along the way libertarians got it in their heads that the social contract only exempts people from democratically-passed laws and never binds them. This very mistaken notion is a perversion of social contract theory.)
Actually, I had a radical idea. I don’t know where you folks live, but in NJ, if you get points on your license for any reason, you can attend traffic school where if you complete the course, the points are taken off. (I think that’s how it works.)
Why not a scenario like this for DUI cases? Create a ‘DUI school’ which is NOT compulsory to attend, the offenders have to pay for the classes out of pocket, the money is revenue for the state, and the more you attend, the more that time on your suspension is lessened.
Or what about the interlock device, or ‘hardship licenses’ offered?
Just some ideas.
I am against random roadblocks to enforce DUI laws. It is also against the law to be drunk in public.
Should police be allowed to randomly stop people on the sidewalk and issue public drunkenness citations? What if they only do it in places where there are a lot of bars and at times that the bars are closing?
Work licenses are granted but the insurance for those are astronomical. My license was suspended while I was a teen for about 6 months due to many, MANY moving violations. I had to buy that SR-22 insurance and if I recall it was around $350/month.
Here in Minnesota, there was a proposal a few years ago (when the technology became available cheaply) to install digital cameras that could ‘read’ license plates, and automatically run every scanned license plate number through the state’s list of wanted vehicles. If there was a match, a message would be sent to the local police dispatcher, who could route a police car to the vicinity. They were especially considering some freeway locations where there were no available exits for several miles, so the wanted vehicle would likely still be on the freeway.
There didn’t seem to be any legal problems with this – it’s about the same as a cop in a patrol car looking up a license plate number in the list of wanted vehicles.
The problem that prevented it from being installed was that the old mainframe computer at the Dept. of Motor Vehicles would have been overwhelmed by the number of license plate number lookups from this automated system.
My attorney friend sent me this link to a speech that was presented by another DUI reform advocate. It straight up scared the crap outta me.
http://www.drunkdrivingdefense.com/general/lawrence-taylor.htm
The problem is (and always has been) how to balance public safety with personal liberty.
I think any crime that may result in jail time warrants a jury trial. Mrs. Cad’s ex-husband forged a court order re: child custody. He even admitted that it was not signed by a judge or commisionner but by an attorney friend and incidently, there was obvious that Mrs Cad’s signature was forged. But Palmdale, CA is an old boy’s network and he had an attorney from there and Mrs. Cad attorney was from LA. Since she had “violated the order” only a certain number of time, her jail time would be 5 mo 15 days so she could not get a jury trial. She came very close to being dragged off to jail in handcuffs. How did she win? As soon as she hired a Palmdale attorney, the case was immediately dismissed since the order was not legal.
Bottom line of the story: It should take 12 people to ruin a person’s life - not 1.
As for checkpoints, I know they’re legal because SCOTUS says they are, but I just cannot see how stopping me is illegal. Drunk driving is an immediate danger? So is carrying anthrax but we don’t have checkpoints for that. And I guaranty there is more danger from people committing DWS (Driving While Stupid) than DWI. Maybe we should have IQ checkpoints.
And while I agree that driving is a privledge and not a right, no one in the United States should EVER be punished for exercising their constitutional rights.