More Out Of Control Govt

[TroutBum]

...ff the gov't tells me to blow into something...i'll tell them to blow into something! something that's not a machine!!!

I don't get it. Please explain.

 

[default]

If she refuses to blow, then just arrest her . . . and skip the drug test already.

 

[UB]

I don't get it. Please explain.

...it would help...if you spent less time in the tatoo parlor...and more time cracking the books!!!

 

[Boondocksaint27]

I'm OK with having your license revoked due to refusing a Breathalyzer test. If the cop requests you take one and you refuse, you are violating the agreement that you signed with the state when you received your license. Great. You violated the contract so you lose your privilege to drive legally.

What boggles my mind is that people are OK with the government forcing you to get a blood draw based on nothing more than your refusal to blow into a machine. At this point you haven't hit anybody. You haven't run them over. You haven't even violated a traffic law. All you have done is refused to blow in a machine. Is this really grounds for a mandatory blood draw? An invasion of my personal body? To me this is a blatant violation of 4th amendment rights.



Let's say I come upon a check point and there are a number of cars in front of me. I don't feel like waiting so I get out of line and do a U-turn to go another way. I immediately get pulled over for avoiding a check point and based on "probable cause" (avoiding a check point) am asked to blow into the box. There is nothing else about me that would cause the officer to think that I was drunk. No smell of booze. No slurred speech. No impairment of motor skills, etc. but because I didn't feel like waiting and made a U-Turn I must be guilty of something. They ask me to blow in the box and I refuse as I feel they are being unreasonable. This may or may not be the right decision on my part but is this really enough "probable cause" to forcibly take blood from me??

Speaking of which, can I excercize my 5th ammendment rights to give blood as I would possibly be incriminating myself?

No. Avoiding the checkpoint is not enough probable cause in and of itself. I think your confusing probable cause with reasonable suspicion. You may be stopped for avoiding the checkpoint, but that alone would not get Probable Cause. The Officer would need to show impairment or have something that would lead him/her to believe you are driving impaired i.e. alcohol containers, the smell of alcohol, etc. I see nowhere in the article that it stated that avoiding the checkpoint would be probable cause to obtain a warrant. Once again, it appears that a Judge is on scene in cases where Probable Cause exists to obtain a warrant.

Probable Cause as defined by USlegal.com: Probable cause is a standard used in justifying certain police actions. For example, police need to have probable cause to believe evidence of a crime exists in requesting a search warrant to be issued. It is more than mere suspicion but less than the amount of evidence required for conviction.

Reasonable Suspicion: Reasonable suspicion has been defined by the U.S. Supreme Court as “the sort of common-sense conclusion about human behavior upon which practical people . . . are entitled to rely.” Further, it has defined reasonable suspicion as requiring only something more than an “unarticulated hunch.” It requires facts or circumstances that give rise to more than a bare, imaginary, or purely conjectural suspicion.

Reasonable Suspicion is required for a stop. Probable Cause is required for the issuance of a warrant.

 

[franklin]

It's so sexy when you talk business.

 

[PearlWatson]

Well, I think a thread titled "More Out of Control Govt" is a good place for my take on this. Point One: The Articles of Confederation were a compact or agreement between independent sovereign States. Some States held slavery as lawful, some had official State Religions. Quakers in Penn. Catholics in Maryland. Congregationalists in Conn. They were just afraid someday the Fed gov might make a state religion and it might not be theirs. They argued about slavery, and agreed to stop allowing slave imports at a later date, around 1820. It was a compromise that logically indicated slavery would end one day. Those who opposed the idea of slavery held their noses and signed the agreement as a way to keep their little set of colonies big enough to have a chance at self-defense.

But the Brits used the independence of the various states as a weapon to disrupt commercial development in the "independent" new "nation", and were getting the former colonies to break apart over their different trade arrangements. To thwart this meddling nuisance, the States agreed to meet to discuss a solution to the problem. Only it was not supposed to open up negotiations for a new Constitution, like it turned out to be. Some of the States balked at giving "so much" power to the Federal government, and insisted on the Bill of Rights being part of the deal.

The idea of people having the right to break up an established government, and start a new one, was a truely radical concept at that time. The idea of human beings having "god-given" or "natural" rights was fairly radical too. It had been growing for some time as folks in Europe underwent the protestant reformation, and the involvement of states with religion had begun to appear problematical, causing hundreds of thousands to die in religious/state wars, and many thousands also to flee to the Colonies where the Kings were setting up religious concessions as colonies. Of various kinds. Sorta like shipping the unwanted and nonconforming folks away, far far away, for convenience at home.

I think we have many remnants of our connected state/religion authortitative roots. The whole idea of the State having power to regulate a religous rite like marriage, for example, looks to me like a religious holdover from our authortarian government past. Why can't the State let various churches or other associations of like-minded folks write their own "contracts" for binding legal relations, and judges just judge on what the agreement was. Why does the State need to regulate personal lives? But this tangent is probably a thread derail when we started out talking about some excessive govt force via our law enforcement doing forced traffic stops and checks on suspicious stuff via handy-dandy "judges" sitting there with the cops sharing small talk about the stupid people on the road, ready to sing a search warrant at any moment. All set to sign any warrant. . . .

We are deeply divided on many issues where the factions are seeking government support for their way, and we are getting actually hostile to one another over our government's actions in "regulating" our private lives. Isn't there a way to get our government out of this business? Some of us want to drive on roads with no drunks/drowsy/impaired drivers initiating accidents, and with snow plows working hard to keep the roads de-iced. We accept the big snow plows being out there, in our way, but not the drunks. OK. But mix in the alcohol/DUI safety issue with revenue needs, and I think you have government that can't steer a straight course.

OK, and folks, I've enjoyed this discussion and so far a lot of very interesting posts. Thank you all, and please go on as you wish.

I enjoyed your broad coverage.
The nanny state is all about mothers laying down the law. I may be MADD that it took 3 DUI's for my niece's mother to get prison time, but these ladies are going over the top with their crusade, eh?