It would be impossible for me to type a decent response to Rocket G's points while sitting at the airport using my iphone while waiting for a connecting flight. But I would assert that blood draws may very well have a deterrance effect on drunk drivers. And it certainly will make prosecuting people who are over the .08 limit but too smart to submit to tests easier. It should up the conviction rate on those individuals. Which in the longterm will mean that joe twelvepack will be doing prisontime on his 4th DWI instead of having 4 acquittals or refiles because he had a "good defense lawyer". Which in turn means those habitual drunk drivers will be off the street instead of risking the lives of others. You can be a cynic and say that we prosecute dwi because its a "revenue source" but to me the bottom line is that most of us will never be victims of gang violence or robbery or a drive by shooting. Most crimes like that happen in bad neighborhoods to people unlike most of us. But drunk drivers are on the same streets that we all drive and they kill people very much like the people you know every day. Of all the crimes out there, this is the one most likely to affect you or the people you love adversely. I don't prosecute DWI any more, I've moved on to higher degree felonies. But if you'd dealt with the victims in intox manslaughter cases like I have, you might feel differently about the reasons we prosecute DWI.
Man has had alcohol for thousands of years, cars about a hundred. Cars are the real problem. They should be banned.
While it was in another state, the SAO where I worked this summer had no problem prosecuting cases where at least one of the blows was under .08, and my last case there was on a guy who had both blows under .08 and had a flawless FSE tape.
This is actually a very good idea. Further...having a breathalayzer at the exit that you must blow into in order to leave in your car is a great idea. I'm all for it. That is not exclusive to other things law enforcement can do. I'm not sure why this program is so controversial. The authorities have been able to do this with a warrant for decades now...and all of a sudden this is a police state. No...he just has no choice because the damned city won't run the buses 24/7 to cart his drunk ass around.
The attitudes shown in this thread reflect a lot on why some folks who are not "legally" intoxicated get arrested/ticketed anyway. Cops I know say that many drivers "talk" their way into an arrest simply because they were jerks when pulled over. Many times they have pulled the person over simply as a precaution, with no intent of issuing a citation. It's simple: cops pull over cars that have brought attention to themselves for some reason - swerving, lane change, broken taillight, etc. If you're drunk (or not) and driving erratically, I hope you get pulled over. When you get pulled over, and you're a jerk to the cop, well...
City doesn't care about safety. Other more liberal cities have already implemented free buses for bar-heavy neighborhoods at night. These buses are so cost efficient for the public compared to letting people drive belligerently, and save lives. However, the city makes more money (on paper) from collecting DWI revenue.
Red Chocolate, Fatty, Rocket G. This one is for you: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5400187.html The guys in these accidents aren't swerving all over the road before they kill someone. Sometimes, they're fine until one big mistake. Cities give officers these incentives so they are aggressive in finding these drivers before they kill someone. b**** about a driver not doing anything to warrant a stop? You would rather they crash first for probable cause?
I love the sensationalism you're going for, but I don't see how someone getting killed fits in with anything Fatty, Rocket G, or anyone else said. They are simply saying it's not right for cops to force a needle in someone and draw blood just because they are suspected of drunk driving. If it gets to the point that they are pulled over and drawing blood is an option, that already means they are off the road. Nobody is saying that taking suspected drunk drivers off the road is a bad thing. So since thats what this thread is all about, how did this new blood draw policy help protect this little girl that was killed? It didn't.
Agree with the policy or not, here are the facts: 1. Current measures are ineffective in combating DWI. 2. Drunk driving accounted for 41% of traffic fatalities in 2006, 17,602 people (credit: MADD). 3. Blood testing with a warrant is permitted by the US and Texas Constitutions. Like it or not, that is the state of affairs. If you don't think the state should administer blood tests, seek a Constitutional amendment. Good luck on that though.
It's not sensationalism, it's what freaking happens when drunk drivers drive. Each year, 250,000 people are injured (which includes many seriously injured) and 17,000 die on the roads due to drunk drivers ... almost six times more than 9-11, and over 4 times more than US deaths in Iraq ... but EVERY YEAR. Maybe we should declare war on drunk drivers. Your chance, and your childrens' chances, of dying in a car are almost doubled due to drunk drivers. And if you're a good driver (meaning you'll likely never cause a deadly accident yourself), your chance of being killed by the drunk are probably way more than doubled since even defensive driving doesn't help protect you against drunk drivers.
Anything they have to do to keep drunk drivers off the streets is fine with me. They should be prosecuted to the fullest extent. If you are driving drunk that means you don't care about your own life. That is fine. But it also means you don't care about others and that warrants throwing your ass in jail for a long time.
Of course it is - where did I argue that drunks don't cause deaths? Please point it out to me. And this has WHAT to do with the blood tests?
Yeah, my pointing out the invasiveness of extracting blood by force from people suspected of DWI but already off the street & hours after the fact = tinfoil + the black helicopters are coming.
And once again, show me how taking blood from someone merely suspected of DWI, hours after their arrest, by force keeps drunks off of the streets. It doesn't. Show me evidence that it acts as a deterrent. You think these people who get wasted and then go out in their cars think to themselves "they might take my blood later, so I better not drive!" No, no they don't. Since "anything" is fine with you to keep these idiots off the streets you should be okay with the two measures I mentioned earlier that preemptively do that, right ("bar exit" testing & alcohol sensors in cars)? Show of hands, who opposes putting in alcohol sensors in cars & have "bar exit" alcohol testing?
My point was never to argue the horror that ensues when people drive drunk or that this has been allowed before. My point is that this does nothing to keep drunks off of the streets - it only helps the joke that is the Harris County DA's office up its conviction rate. Many folks here can't seem to grasp the difference between preemptive measures that are designed to stop DWIs & the ensuing deaths and those that are designed to up DWI conviction rates & make more $$$ for the county & the local cops. I suppose I shouldn't call the DA's office a joke without saying the same about the outfit that I imagine would handle everyone's blood - the HPD Crime Lab, but that's another discussion altogether.
So the DA's advice to everyone is to refuse any test. There you have it. Nice. I'll point out though that it is sad a DA doesn't realize that a person who refuses tests faces substantial penalties including automatic suspension of their driver's license (which doesn't start the day you get pulled over but rather months later when the state finally gets around to filing charges - keeping you in driving limbo for months) AND the above enumerated attorney's fees which are another 3-10k plus the additional 1k a year/3 year fine imposed by DPS. That's not 'scott free' in any reasonable person's book. As far as those who say 'if you've got nothing to fear why not submit' I can only point to the thousands of cases where someone has cooperated with police and then been wrongly convicted. There is a REASON we have a right to a lawyer - you simply can't trust the state or their agents. And the facts have proven that time and again. In addition, the police DO, in fact, have a large monetary motive for DWI arrests. The more arrests the more court time, the more court time the more overtime. And it's not insubstantial with some 'DWI Task Force' officers almost doubling their salary over the course of the year. Is it a good idea to drink to much and drive? Of course not. Does this warrant being able to force someone to submit to a blood test? No. There are already built in penalties to refusing cooperation that are fairly substantial. btw: any chance we can get some realistic statistics from a source that isn't dramatically biased. In 1980 an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was created. Since then, MADD has grown from a small grass roots effort to a national phenomenon and they have done it by presenting data about drinking and driving in a manner that renders the population without a means of contesting their claims. For instance, www.madd.org quotes information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) that says in 2005, 39 percent of all traffic fatalities were killed in alcohol-related crashes. That's 16,895 out of 43,443 people killed in accidents that involved alcohol. That is comparable to one person every half-hour. This is true. What they don't tell you though is what I have a problem with. "The term "alcohol-related" doesn't say the fatality was caused by the presence of alcohol. If a drunk guy is walking down the street and a sober driver runs over him while swerving to miss a herd of penguins, that's considered an alcohol-related fatality. If a drunk driver in a car gets hit by a sober guy on a bicycle, that's reported as an alcohol-related fatality. An NHTSA Highway and Vehicle Safety Report estimated 12 percent of alcohol-related traffic fatalities involve an intoxicated bicyclist or pedestrian and not a drunk behind the wheel of a car. The NHTSA has also declared "a motor vehicle crash is considered to be alcohol-related if at least one driver or non-occupant (such as a pedestrian or pedal cyclist) involved in the crash is determined to have had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .01 gram per deciliter (g/dL) or higher." A BAC of .01 is a long way from the .08 that is considered legally intoxicated in the United States." http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=20592 As far as MADD's goals go, Charles V. Peña writes: (Charles V. Peña is the former executive director of the MADD Northern Virginia Chapter and the former executive director of the American Council on Alcoholism Although MADD officially denies it is seeking the prohibition of moderate drinking when dining out, it remains unofficially committed to the prohibition of alcohol. Temperance is on the tongue of the organization’s highest officials: • According to former MADD President Katherine Prescott, “There is no safe blood alcohol level, and for that reason responsible drinking means no drinking and driving.”(4) • “Lowering the legal [arrest] standard will be a deterrent for light drinkers as well as heavy drinkers," Prescott told USA Today in 1998. (Emphasis added.)(5) • “If you choose to drink, you should never drive. We will not tolerate drinking and driving — period,” MADD President-elect Karolyn Nunnallee told an NBC audience in 1997.(6) • MADD President Wendy Hamilton urged potential contributors in a November 2002 fundraising letter to, “Forget the limits on BAC. It’s just not acceptable to drink and drive. Period.”(7) • In a September, 2002 letter to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Hamilton said: “Driving is a very serious and complex task. The thought that it can be successfully combined with alcohol on the part of the driver or even the passengers defies any logic I can imagine.”(8) Even more interesting Pena continues: (T)he U.S. Department of Transportation’s Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) data show that the average BAC level in a fatal crash where a driver was actually tested is .17% — more than double the proposed .08% BAC standard.(9) Second, the typical DWI fatality is caused by a person who has had more than nine drinks before driving.(10) And third, nearly two-thirds of alcohol-related deaths involve drivers with BACs of .15% and above.(11) Even MADD knows that lowering the BAC to .08% BAC will have no affect on these flagrant scofflaws.
