Posted on 06/08/2016 1:29:44 PM PDT by Theoria
A Michigan teen who was ticketed as a passenger for balking at taking a Breathalyzer test says that she refused because the detective did not have a warrant.
Now 17-year-old Casey Guthrie has filed a federal lawsuit against the cop who slapped her with the $100 citation last month.
The honor student is also challenging the constitutionality of a Michigan law that makes it a civil infraction for anybody under age 21 to refuse a police officer's request to blow into the device and does not require the cop to produce a warrant.
"No adequate remedy exists at law to redress this unconstitutional policy, practice, and/or custom," the lawsuit states.
The law violates Guthrie's Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches, her Detroit lawyer told NBC News.
"Her rights were violated when she was forced to submit to Breathalyzer to prove her innocence," attorney Mike Rataj said. "That is not how the criminal justice system works. This is a girl who has never been in trouble before and has no criminal history."
"Also, she was not the driver," Rataj noted. "She was a passenger in a car with a bunch of other high school seniors."
Rataj added that Guthrie's father is a retired ATF officer who had warned her earlier never to submit to a Breathalyzer without a warrant . He said Guthrie's dad arrived at the scene after Detective Kenneth Pelland of the Gross Isle Township police pulled the car over last month.
"She called her father," Rataj said. "This particular officer is notorious for intimidating kids... The officer lied and said he smelled alcohol on her."
There was no immediate response to Rataj's charge or the lawsuit from Township Supervisor Brian Loftus or from Pelland.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
This is one of many reasons civilian dash cams are becoming very, very popular in the US. I have one in all of my vehicles and a helmet cam on my motorcycle. The car ones are not expensive.
All the cool kids are doing it nowadays
From time to time, a judge or other “member of the bar” or person associated with the courts around here gets stopped for DUI.
They NEVER take a breathalyzer!
Of course. I forgot. Cops can do no wrong, and the citizen is always guilty. How silly of us to think otherwise.
Oh stop This under aged spoiled brat got caught.
In Mesquite, TX I was pulled over for speeding in heavy traffic, on the freeway. I pulled over to the shoulder rather than the center, as I was trained, for safety.
The policeman did not like that at all, as if I was eluding him, and said “That’s a good way to get yourself shot” which I thought was excessive. I had my baby in the car at the time. Would he have shot at my vehicle? He implied yes.
In TX, it is explicitly allowed to avoid a sobriety checkpoint, and police cannot use that as cause to detain a person.
I’ve seen masses of vehicles performing u-turns ahead of me only top find a checkpoint up ahead.
Ever since chicks with dicks can go into the woman's bathroom.
Eight years of Obama and now nobody knows what bathroom to use any more.
Here they have BAT-mobiles, which are mobile courtrooms, at certain sobriety checks. Trial and conviction on the spot. U-turn to avoid the checkpoint gets you pulled over and arrested.
I do.
But I reserve the right to piss on an Obama supporter wherever they may be.
Or a blogger.
Years ago I was leaving a wedding near NASA and ran into a checkpoint.
Even as hammered as I was I had the common sense to enter the parking lot of the mall next to me and execute a U-turn.
So did many others. Cops could do nothing.
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