Posted on 09/28/2017 3:18:17 PM PDT by JP1201
The plaintiffs, who are represented by the ACLU of Georgia, were all stopped for briefly touching or crossing the line at the edge of their lanes—an offense that every driver on the road probably has committed at some point. They were all evaluated by Carroll, who deemed them stoned despite their protests to the contrary. They were all arrested for DUI and spent a night in jail. And in all three cases, as WXIA, the NBC station in Atlanta, revealed in an exposé last May, the DUI charges were eventually dropped after blood tests found no trace of marijuana—neither active THC nor inactive metabolites.
"As a result of their prosecutions," the ACLU complaint says, "Plaintiffs suffered the loss of liberty, extensive monetary losses, reputational damages, humiliation, and emotional distress," all "because a police officer had a hunch, based on deeply flawed drug-recognition training, that they might have been smoking marijuana." The ACLU notes that Carroll used a "watered-down version" of the 12-step DRE protocol, which "is itself riddled with flaws, based on discredited studies, and irresponsibly entrusts police officers with performing essentially medical or scientific tests."
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
A mass spectrometry positives could provide probable cause for a blood test.
And when coupled with a fingerprint, the chain-of-custody argument is moot.
Maybe, but when Libertarians and the ACLU are on the same side, it's usually bogus.
Why do you hate civil liberties so much?
In the realm of "even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in awhile", "Reason" may have actually found an example of some real abuse.
There may be a "probable cause" and illegal search and detention thing here, but the problem looks more like an abuse of power with drugs merely being used as an excuse to justify the abuse of power.
It's a shakedown scheme with "drugs" as an excuse.
But mostly worrying about legalizing drugs.
I love civil liberties. Indeed, I am more worried than ever that they are being destroyed. Freedom of speech is heavily under assault. for example.
But drugs are not civil liberty.
Hey, keyword coward, if you have something to say, nut up and post it.
Drugs might not be a civil liberty but cops use drugs as an excuse to destroy them...
They need to be constrained to stay within the boundaries placed upon them by the rights of we citizens.
The fact of the matter is that a total of zero point zero drugs are involved in these three cases combined. Maybe delete those couple of sentences from your desktop file of cut-and-paste responses.
First, as your driving license is issued by your state, not by the Feds, it's the laws and regulations of your state that matter. These vary by state, as you would expect.
In PA, for example, you may decline FTS and breathalyzer if you have not been arrested yet with no penalty. From the first link via searching for "pennsylvania field sobriety test refusal":
Police officers will try to make it clear that you are required to consent by law; however, this is not entirely accurate. (What a surprise that a police officer would lie to you at a traffic stop, huh.)
According to Pennsylvania implied consent laws, you are required by law to consent to a chemical blood alcohol test if a police officer arrests you for a DUI. Field sobriety tests are not chemical tests. The only tests required by law are breath, blood or urine tests. You cannot be prosecuted for refusing a field sobriety test by an officer.
If you refuse a field sobriety test, this cannot be used by the officer as probable cause for an arrest.
Police cannot suspend your license, nor can they force you to take the test.
https://www.pittsburghcriminalattorney.com/can-i-refuse-field-sobriety-test-in-pennsylvania/
The results for the same search in California, to use another example, are similar -- you can refuse a friendly or not-so-friendly request to do FSTs.
If they pull you over they already have probable cause for a blood test. Most municipalities keep a judge on call so they get one in 5 minutes. Fingerprint testing is really only useful for parole and sports testing so nobody has to handle pee anymore.
If they pull you over for erratic driving, maybe. States vary from one to the next. Every law-abiding citizen would benefit from a quick, non-intrusive (no blood or urine) assay for drugs. There are too many impaired drug users on the roads now, and as MJ is legalized and marketed to everyone the roads are even more dangerous. The technology is improving, and that’s good for road safety.
So the people who used to not use MJ because it was illegal, are now using and driving under the influence although that remains illegal? Why should we believe this dubious claim?
Straw man. It was a lot ‘more illegal’ before, since you could be nailed both for DUI and for possession. Now it’s just for DUI, and that’s hard to prove (thus the need for better assays) as noted in this thread.
Only if it was the norm among those DingUI to also be possessing - another unsupported and suspect claim.
Well of course many more were — and I don’t have to prove it was the “norm” at all — the point is it was previously more of a disincentive to carry your stash with you when it was illegal. Now it isn’t.
Analagously, if it’s illegal to possess a weapon while driving your vehicle then it makes more sense that if it were made legal more people would carry weapons in their vehicle. No need to prove the “norm” of how many carried in their vehicle prior to the new law.
Which has zip to do with the roads allegedly being "even more dangerous."
Unless of course the stoner driving the car is tempted to roll another one. What could go wrong? Like Toonces the Cat LOL
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