I don’t know what it’s like in your jurisdiction, but around here if I (a middle-aged white guy) step out of the car with something in my hand, I’d be lucky to hear the words “drop it” before I was hit by the Taser.
If they took it out of the trunk, it may or may not count as an “open container” depending on the wording of the law. Many such laws differentiate between the passenger area and the trunk.
In general, “loopholes” like this one are promoted by people who must think that lawyers, judges, and legislators aren’t very smart.
I had a friend tell me once that a lawyer told him that if you got pulled over for anything, simply crack your window when the cop approaches, state “I am exerting my right to do and say nothing” and then roll the window back up and just sit there with your hands on the wheel, ignoring all requests from the officer.
Of course, this sounds like a load of BS but I wonder what would happen? Would the cops break your window, drag you out of the car for failure to comply? Or would they just let you sit there and try to outwait you?
Is that illegal? Not saying it isn’t; I’ve just never heard of it.
Phone a friend?
Phone another friend?
Another related hijack, I heard of a story where a person was driving drunk and hit a tree on the side of the road, but maybe a few blocks from his house. He got out of the car and ran home (drunk) and, at least claimed, to have some thing to drink while he called the cops to report the wreck. Can he get a DUI in this instance? I know there’s got to be some other charges as well.
OK, here is how to beat a DUI.
- Be polite, take a field sobriety test. Fail it.
- Get in the police car, be held for the required time (30 minutes) and take the official “I am drunk” test. Fail it.
- Sleep it off, make bail, go home hire a lawyer.
- Tell the lawyer that while being held in the drunk tank for the required time, you vomited in your mouth and swallowed your own vomit. This breaks the protocol that says a suspect can have nothing by mouth during the waiting period.
- Demand a jury trial. convine on juror.
The problem is that’s illegal in a lot of jurisdictions.
Convince one juror. Damned fat fingers.
I saw on the news years ago, that a guy observed the flashing lights of a police car behind him. He pulled onto the highway and kept driving well below the speed limit. The police were not able to go into a dangerous pursuit as the guy was driving safely. He drove fr hours until he ran out of gas. By then he was sober.
YMMV
Purely anecdotal, but I have seen a similar scheme pulled off. Drunk friend crashed his car into a light post in his own front yard. Went inside and waited for the cops. Knowing this guy, he probably did keep drinking in the meantime, but it took them 10 min to get there. In the end, his lawyer got him off with a defense that he drank after the accident. Now if you tried it stepping out of your car, I’d bet a jury would nail you. (Not to mention the whole ‘face down with a gun drawn on you’ part!)
Also had another friend get drunk July 4th, sleep (briefly) at a hotel party, get up at 7am and drive home. Car breaks down on the way, and while parked on the highway shoulder waiting for a friend to come help him out, he falls asleep in the car, with his key in the ignition. Cop wakes him up … DUI. I guess the ‘key’ to his case was that his key was in the ignition. (Well that, plus the fact that he was still legally drunk the morning after…(pukie smiley))
Methinks that would count as “resisting arrest”. The cop will knock on the window, and order you to get out and do the sobriety test. If you don’t, he will break the window, open door, and bust you.
In my state, refusal to take the drunk test is nearly as serious as taking it and failing.
There are no cute tricks you can pull to keep from getting busted. This is like the arguments about how I don’t have to pay income taxes because Congress didn’t say “Mother May I” or whatever it is.
The police arrest people all the time, and 90+% of the time it isn’t the Gestapo hassling innocent citizens. It’s belligerent drunks trying to get over.
It isn’t going to work.
IANAL, but I believe so. I know that the police in my state sometimes arrest people in the parking lots outside bars.
I don’t think, in other words, that if you come out of a bar staggering and stinking of beer, they have to wait for you to get into the car and drive off before they bust you.
They still got you for public intoxication, and it is going to be quite difficult (as I mentioned) to convince a jury (or even moreso, a judge) that you just started drinking after the cops pulled you over for veering over the center lines or something.
The question “why did you pick the middle of the street to start drinking?” is a difficult question to answer. You are entitled to the presumption of innocence. You are not entitled to the presumption that the judge, jury, and prosecuting attorneys are idiots.
There’s a difference between your house and a car.
You are legally required to provide your license and registration to the cops if you’re driving. You can’t assert your fifth amendment rights in this case because you don’t have the right to drive a car without a license.
The cops are going to eventually bust open your window and drag you out of the car.
You said “if he doesn’t arrest you.” That’s what I was responding to.
Oh, absolutely true.
I thought the bad girl’s way of getting out of a DUI was to blow the cop?
Years ago, in a year-end Top Ten issue, Car & Driver told this story.
(To paraphrase)
"I was manning a speed trap in a 25MPH zone. A car comes at 27, I continue to wait. Another at 35, still not big enough game. 45? OK, I start the car and hit the lights. The corvette pulls over and I see the drive moving in a strange way, so I approach with caution. Behind the wheel was a teenaged girl with he blouse unbuttoned, her license was tucked in her bra. She is staring straight ahead, I say nothing. She stares straight ahead, I say nothing. She looks up and says “Oh Shit.”
-Office Judy Someone, Some Police Department.
I believe there was also a Law & Order episode where someone was in an accident while drunk and called their lawyer who advised them to go into a nearby bar and be drinking when the police arrived. I don’t recall how it turned out.
I’ve got it! Brownbag that whiskey bottle. No public drinking charge and you only have to show it if you fail the field sobriety test. If you don’t get out of hand and make yourself a disorderly nuisance, you should be fine. Most states don’t criminalize public intox without some cause.
A closed bottle is not the same thing as a bottle with the original seal intact. If the bottle isn’t sealed, it’s going to be an open container law violation in many/most states. Even if the bottle is in fact still sealed, the cops aren’t going to be able to tell unless the driver cracks it open practically right in their faces.
I think there was a CSI along these same lines too. A cop’s dad hit someone the night before, and woke up finding blood/hair on the front of his car. The cop son/daughter told them to take some shots of liquor, so when the cops came he could claim he got drunk this morning, not the previous night.
I, too, forget how that one turned out.
(This of course only works if you get away from the accident scene and buy some time. I would certainly not recommend meeting the cop with a bottle in your hand, or opening a bottle while in the car waiting for the cop to come up)
Here is the real Bad Girls guide, compiled for you by me, based on evidence of a friend of mine who was not sober for about 10 years running.
(1) You are polite and cooperative when pulled over.
(2) You act very innocent.
(3) Being hot does not hurt, because most cops are male.
(4) You say you are on your way home from work (or night classes) (again, it helps if this is true)
(5) Bonus points if you work in a bar, because this gives you a good reason to smell like booze
(6) While cooperative you do not, under any circumstances, do the field sobriety test if it involves getting out of the car. (She claimed she took her shoes off after being on her feet for her whole shift–again, could have been true–and couldn’t get them back on.)
(7) If you did something stupid while driving, your excuse is that you have a terrible sense of direction and you were lost.
She never got a ticket. She’s a terrible driver so she got stopped A LOT. She was never sober. She’s lucky she never caused an accident or killed someone.
IIRC this was the plot of one episode of The Bill a decade or so back. It didn’t work.