Posted on 09/14/2005 3:42:43 PM PDT by elkfersupper
Dalworthington Gardens, Texas police will draw the blood of drunk driving suspects.
After completing a training course, Dalworthington Gardens police officers have been certified to draw blood from any motorist whom they suspect of driving under the influence of alcohol. The small North Texas city joins three counties -- Montague, Archer and Clay -- which have recently adopted similar policies.
These jurisdictions are seeking to make drunk driving convictions less vulnerable to court challenge as mounting evidence shows breathalyzer machines can be inaccurate. Under the new policy, a suspect will be brought to a police station and asked in a videotaped interrogation to submit voluntarily to a blood test. If the request is refused, police will call one of the judges who have agreed to remain on-call to obtain a warrant. If approved, police will draw the blood, by force if necessary. Anyone who refuses a blood test, even if not convicted or formally accused of a crime, will surrender his license to drive on the spot and will not see it again for at least six months.
"It's kind of eerie," Frank Colosi, an attorney who works with the Fort Worth chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. "It's kind of grotesque that the government can come and take your blood."
Section 724.017 of the Texas code requires that, "Only a physician, qualified technician, chemist, registered professional nurse, or licensed vocational nurse may take a blood specimen at the request or order of a peace officer....'qualified technician' does not include emergency medical services personnel." Dalworthington Gardens believes their twenty-hour course meets this standard.
Well, just ask them to take another sample for you to have independently analyzed and see what happens.
"Aluminum shampoo".
Sorry, I got behind on replies and then had power failure, then had to go sleep, work, etc.
All that definitely cuts into my FReep time.
The sad reason this is occuring is because attorneys are getting legitimate DUIs overturned on the lame premis that the breathalizer machine operators will not release their 'source code'. So thousands of drunkards are getting off scott free...not learning their lesson...and more likely to kill innocent people. If this is the only way they can get around that loop hole Im all for it. Oh yeah by the way...i have got a DUI before (it was reduced to reckless driving) for driving .08. If I had not got that I probably would have kept on being an idiot that would go to a bar and drive home drunk. Nothing like being locked up for a nite to set your priorties straight.
And it amazes me; the number of people on this forum, who don't have a problem with that.
What would Texas do about someone like U.S. Senator Ted Chappaquiddick Kennedy (Drunk-MA), who left the scene of Mary Jo Kopechne's death and hid in a hotel room until the next day?
Self-inflicted nosebleeds are the most likely source...;-)
I agree entirely.
Your post was spot on
Thanks. Thinking about the issues brought up in this thread inspired me to get a brand new tagline.
I didn't used to think so, as far as the "fundamentalists" went anyway, but repeated alliances between those two disparate groups on policies meant to deprive the rest of us of freedom and the right to be "left alone" over the past few years have convinced me that you're absolutely right. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention before, or had a "no enemies on the right" attitude.
No more: my long-held contempt for the politically correct left is almost matched by my growing disdain for their neo-puritan allies in the ranks of the fundamentalist "vice crusaders".
ROTFLMAO!!!!!
Let's look again at your link
Case#1-"Even the legislature has no power to deny to a citizen the right to travel upon the highway and transport his property in the ordinary course of his business or pleasure, though this right may be regulated in accordance with the public interest and convenience."
[As I said, anyone can travel as a passenger. An operator must be certified.]
Case#'s2,3,&4-Again they all speak of a right to travel. Nothing stated in any of them about a right to operate a motor vehicle
Then that link cites a whole bunch of cases, on a diverse number of topics in order to try and make a basket of apples into an orange. Yes, there is a right to travel freely as a passenger. However that is not the same as being an operator of a motor vehicle. As I have pointed out above(more than once), it takes training and certification of ability to operate a motor vehicle on public roads. Private property is another story, but on public roads certification is required.
As an aside, I did enjoy the ads on that link. Expecially the one where Killer Whales talk to us . . .
(Bong- Koo-Koo! Koo-Koo! Koo-Koo!)
I agree. There are already stories of people who were 'tasered' who died, and people (usually with weight) who died of cardiac arrest after physical confrontations with law enforcement.
And what is this about source code? The bottom line is that those tests are not 100% accurate. If someone registers .08% on the test they may actually only have blood alcohol content of .07% or .06% or lower, and one person with that blood alcohol content may be fine to drive while another might be fairly impaired. With the "per se" laws we have now though, no proof of impairment is necessary. With zero proof of impairment most judges will convict with a test result of .08%, and all someone accused of driving while impaired can do then is spend the big bucks and take his case to a jury trial and hope the jury doesn't convict and give him a lot more time than the judge would give him. In the rare instance where a defendant has enough money he may very well try to hire a good expert to challenge the validity of the test. But he's not looking for a loophole, he's looking to level the playing field between him and the man with a badge with instant credibility in the eyes of the trier of fact. Breathalyzers are not nearly the solid evidence they would lead you to believe that they are, otherwise the cops referred to in the article that is the subject of this thread would not be looking to hold people down and extract their blood against their will.
You know(or not) I work in LE. I've done a few DUI arrests over the years and investigated more than enough DUI fatality accidents and have no patience for drunk drivers or convicted repeat offenders but I try to keep it all in perspective. This is crap. The legal process already provides for suspension of licenses for refusal of BAC tests. Surprisingly, for those who can afford jury trials even if they refused to give a breath sample, the jurys have been on the ball in my experience. Unless they've killed or injured someone forget about the blood draw, especially by LE. I sure as heck ain't gonna poke a needle into someone. Make it miserable for the convicted not the accused.
Not surprised. Intellectual cowards always operate thus--and you certainly are such a specimen.
A few years ago some doofus rammed his van into the back of my motorcycle, resulting in the tail of my motorcycle impaled in his radiator and me tossed onto the road and taken to the hospital. The cop didn't even bother to give the guy a TICKET, much less a test for whether he was stoned on something. There has got to be some reasonable answer to investigating injury or fatality accidents.
Or, spit?
After about 2:00 am , (I have heard) the overwhelming majority of drivers are intoxicated.
Take the total population of drivers, divide them into subsets of drunks and non drunks and compare the accident rates.
I bet drunks have fewer accidents percentagewise than sober drivers.
You said: I bet drunks have fewer accidents percentagewise than sober drivers.
***
That's an interesting hypothesis. Why do you think that might be true?
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