Posted on 12/11/2005 2:30:55 PM PST by elkfersupper
An annual campaign presented by Mothers Against Drunk Driving caused some concern within Pima County's Justice and Superior courts Tuesday.
MADD members spent the day next to the courthouses handing out ribbons as part of their Tie One on for Safety campaign, which aims to get people to use designated drivers during the holiday season.
At least two judges, Justice of the Peace Jack Peyton and Superior Court Judge Ted Borek, were presiding over driving-under-the-influence trials Tuesday and were forced to question jurors to see if they were tainted by the display. The jurors were asked if they saw the display, which included a crushed car and photos of DUI victims, if they spoke with anyone about it, and if they were swayed in any way.
The trials continued uninterrupted after only a handful of the jurors said they saw the car but weren't influenced by it.
Defense attorney James Nesci said the display was a "blatant attempt" to influence the judicial system, noting MADD could have held the event anywhere, anytime. "They have a First Amendment right to protest, but that right ends where the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial begins," Nesci said.
Theresa Babich, a victim advocate with MADD, said Presidio Park was chosen because of its heavy foot traffic, not because jurors were around.
"We weren't out soliciting anyone specifically," Babich said.
Do you believe it to be an effective use of scarce resources to net 2 drivers out of 100?
Do you know that more drunks are caught by good police work simply by observing traffic and targeting only those that appear to be impaired?
I don't see how checkpoints on nights when more accidents happen because of drunk driving, such as holidays and such, is such a HUGE ordeal in our society. By that thinking, you should be against what we have to go through at the airports these days, are you?
Really? Where do you live? I've been driving for 30+ years and have been to 46 of the lower 48 states as well as Hawaii and I've never been "checkpointed ". It must suck to be you, eh?
The vast majority of people out driving after 10 PM are coming from bars and restaurants. If you don't believe me, cruise your city late at night. The malls are closed. The church parking lots are empty. The librarian went home hours ago and the offices are dark. Where do you find cars? In the parking lots of taverns, bars, restaurants that serve alcohol, beer gardens, lounges, and night clubs.
If drinking and driving were the problem that you suggest, there wouldn't be very many of us still alive or walking.
I suggest we go back to the old standard of .15 and make the penalties severe. The .08 driver is not the problem. Why subject him (or her) to financial ruin for driving home on the wrong road?
I agree with you on that.
Like your jurisdiction, my local community refuses to participate in checkpoints and rely on officer doing their jobs and observing drivers for erratic driving.
Thank God for good officers like you who still value freedom.
People have used intoxicating substances since time began. Making them illegal -- as MADD's intent seems to be -- will just bring us the problems of Prohibition all over again.
I wonder how many people died or had their lives ruined during that fiasco compared to the number who died then from any 'alcohol related' cause prior to Prohibition.
My old man was a drunk too and I avoided alcohol for many years because I saw the problems first hand but I do not want to ban it. Why punish responsible users because of the problems caused by those who aren't?
Did your dad ever get his act together?
Okay, thanks for explaining.
I was thinking of something 'heroic' when you said bravery. Bold, daring, or even stupid might be more accurate, but I see what you mean.
Hildy,
Checkpoints catch something like 1/4th as many drunks as roving patrols and don't violate anyone's rights.
If you are interested in getting drunks off the road, you should be against checkpoints.
BTW, I have flown only once since 9/11. I do find those checks to be intrusive as well as discriminatory towards those least likely to cause a problem. Checkpoints are exercises in obedience training and I choose not to participate. If I can't drive in a reasonable time, I don't go.
No he continued to be the Classic British weekend binge drunk.
However he had the sense to give up driving for life after his third impaired charge.
For my part the only time I was pulled over I got a 24 hour roadside suspension because I admitted I had been drinking.
I learned my lesson after that.
Well, how can we fight if you agree with me? LOL
Egg-zackly.
Flying first class again this week....we'll see if things have changed a bit.
"are weapons and explosives checks at airport ....Care to point me to the Power granted to the Federal Government in the Constitution to perform such checks?"
Care to point me to the Power/right granted to you in the Constitution to carry such items aboard commercial aircraft?
I can save you some time, it doesn't exist!
At least the specifics as granted in the 2nd Amendment....and that is what your specious argument is based on.....cherry picking.
Or do you hold the belief that individuals should dictate the 2nd Amend allows them to carry explosives/weapons wherever they damn well please? As though the framers of the Constitution did not believe in common sense.
News bulletin....you do not, via your interpretation of the 2nd rights, have the explicit right to endanger my life with explosives when I board aircraft.
Rent a truck to transport.
Period.
Lack of objectivity about posters reflects on lack of objectivity on the substance of the argument.
As one who has followed crash statistics for 37+ years it is very clear that alcohol is an evil in our society. It is also clear that the attempts to fight that evil have abridged our constitutional rights just as the attempts to fight the evil of terrorism have abridged our rights.
When is it worth the tradeoff? Most of us accept a certain amount of censorship eg loose lips sink ships. But are road checks unreasonable search and seizure? Is jury tampering worth it?
Consider alcohol is the #1 factor in
traffic deaths, traffic injuries
boating, skiing, ATV and all recreational equipment activities
hunting injuries and errors
accidents to adults in the home
domestic violence, assault and battery
disorderly conduct
Also clearly the enforcement of DUI laws does influence behavior. Check the statistics state by state, city by city as they adopt a stricter DUI law, or adopt a stricter enforcement of it. Drunks will intentionally drive around a suburb known to enforce DUI rather than go through it and risk a ticket. Thus drunks have more crashes in the bypass suburb that does not enforce DUI.
Now as a yardstick, compare that to seat belts. Unlike DUI enforcement that can be shown to have prevent many crashes, Seat belts have not prevented a single crash. When a crash has occurred, they have saved a few lives and prevented a few lives from being saved.
Recently rush hour traffic was stopped on the RR tracks in Elmwood Park, IL. The cars had no where to go. When the train came bearing down on them, the people in those cars could not undo their seatbelts fast enough and died. There are numerous anecdotal incidents on both sides.
Statistically it is a wash for seat belts. But statistically DUI enforcement is extremely effective. The problem with MADD is that they get our taxmoney to lobby our lawmakers and executive and judicial branches for both DUI and seatbelt enforcement. They are now in it for the money. It is now all about grantsmanship. They don't really care about either the lives saved, or the lives and civil liberties lost. All you have to do is try to pull their taxpayer funded grants and you'll see what they now care about.
I know I'm late to the party but I just couldn't resist.
So suppose I'm coming back from a party. Had a couple of glasses of wine. You run a red light and kill my wife. Who's going to jail for her death?
My ex flies a lot. She flies first class all the time and watches everyone who boards and says that she will leave if she sees anything that's hinky. She has the FBI number programmed into her phone if she does.
She's a fair skinned, blonde Italian and she gets wanded and searched EVERY time she flies.
I asked her if she wanted a note from me that said that I was the only one that she ever terrorized.
Good luck with your flight.
Ten years ago, I got pulled over one night and the officer asked if I had been drinking and I responded, "Yes sir." He asked how much and I said, "quite a bit."
I had crossed the center line twice, was 12 miles over the limit, and admitted to drinking and he let me go with a warning because I didn't act like a jerk or even like I was drunk. I had 7 twelve ounce Black Russians over the course of 7 hours with nothing to eat since lunch (this was midnight) and I wasn't drunk one hour later when stopped.
I prefer DAMM: Drunks Against Mad Mothers.
That's right. Take the guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens so that only robbers, murderers, etc... have them.
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