Posted on 04/05/2009 10:14:06 PM PDT by nickcarraway
The state senate has approved a measure calling for sobriety checkpoints.
Professor David Hanson of the State University of New York in Potsdam says Texas is not alone in banning checkpoints. "A number of individual states have decided sobriety checkpoints violate their own state constitutions."
Many believe the checkpoints violate the U.S. Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures, but Houston mom Valerie Lalime, whose 13-year-old daughter Lilly was killed by a drunk driver, says checkpoints work during holiday periods. "The research has shown that there is a decrease in the number of drunk driving accidents."
Bill Lewis of MADD says that's why his group has been lobbying the legislature to okay checkpoints. "The purpose of checkpoints is to stop drunk driving and I need for somebody to tell me what's so wrong about that."
But South Texas College of Law Constitutional law Professor Gerald Treece doesn't agree with the U.S. Supreme Court, which has ruled checkpoints are okay. "I care, because the 4th Amendment is one of those amendments that we very, very much have diluted over the years."
A related bill -- called "Lilly's Law" after Lilly Lalime -- allows police to order blood or breath tests for suspected drunk drivers.
Bill? That's the most unusual name for a mother I've ever heard.
My girl Bill
My my girl Bill
Can’t say enough about the way I feel
About my girl, my girl Bill.
Ultimately it doesn't impact me because I only drink at home (where my Jack Daniels whisky, Smithwick's & Boddington's brew, Woodford Reserve bourbon, and Johnnie Walker Blue Label scotch... is much cheaper).
Sheeesh. I haven’t heard about MADD in a long while. It was peaceful without their propaganda. How ‘bout they just focus on this oBama dude and help him find his Birth Certificate? Focus on that.
Actual drunks who drive drunk do it all the time, not just during holidays.
The fact that the checkpoints “work” during holidays just means you’re ensnaring the father driving his family home from a nice dinner where he had a couple of drinks and triggered the “no tolerance” numbers.
Meanwhile the actual drunks see the checkpoint half a mile down the road and turn down a side street instead of lining up since he knows he’s drunk.
But to the MADD types, it’s more about demonizing someone having a glass of wine than actually putting a stop to dangerous drunks.
Well, I agree that although it does not effect me (southern Texas), I really hate to see Texas subcoming to MADD ideologies.
I expect that this will eventually become stops for all items without regard to cause... Just another breach of our liberties.
I’d like to say that all checkpoints should be against the Constitution! Too bad that it is not so...
If ILLEGAL ALIENS were kicked out and kept out, that would do at least as much for the traffic casualty rate.
"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be 'cured' against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."
checkpoints belong on the border...
I’m a member of DAMM - Drunks Against Mad Mothers
Late last century when I was stationed at Ft Riley, KS they used a unique checkpoint system. They set traffic cones in a curvng pattern that tested your driving ability. If you hit a cone they called it probable cause and pulled you over for further evaluation. If you negotiated the obstacle you continued on your way with no delay. Seemed reasonable to me.
I guess nobody has told him what's wrong with a "Straw Man Argument" either.
I don't know why they're saying checkpoints are banned in TX. I ran into one a few years ago south of Houston, near NASA.
And when I say "ran into" what I really meant was "I saw the checkpoint and pulled into a strip mall and successfully evaded it by driving around it.
I was told later by a local that in TX you are allowed to flip a U turn or perform any maneuver to avoid a checkpoint, because the maneuver itself is not probable cause for the police stop you. That would explain why, of all the people backed up in traffic at the checkpoint, a full 50% joined me in driving around the checkpoint in full view of the police, and the police did not act.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.