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Texas County Will Use Twitter To Publish Drunk Drivers' Names
alphadogg contributes this snippet from Network World: "If you get busted for drunk driving in Montgomery County, Texas, this holiday season, your neighbors may hear about it on Twitter. That's because the local district attorney's office has decided to publish the names of those charged with driving while intoxicated between Christmas and New Year's Eve. County Vehicular Crimes Prosecutor Warren Diepraam came up with the idea as a way of discouraging residents from getting behind the wheel while drunk. 'It's not a magic bullet that's going to end DWIs, but it's something to make people think twice before they get behind the wheel of a car and drive while they're intoxicated,' he said."
And how will they compensate anyone wrongfully put on that feed for the damage to their reputation? The Court of Public Opinion can be brutal about these things, especially when they work in HR somewhere..
Ice Cream has no bones.
I guess it's gone out of fashion. Sad.
I checked the article to be sure, and yep, it says that those CHARGED will have their names published on Twitter. So, even if you are found not guilty, you are going to be publicly named as a DUI offender before you even get a chance to clear your name.
I'm not trying to excuse drunk drivers, but for some reason, its seen as ok to make those charged or convicted of DUIs out to be the scum of the earth, wantonly careening down the roadways, seeking out innocents to mow down, when in fact most people who get DUIs are just ordinary joes who made a bad decision while not in the best state of mind.
The idea that it is somehow ok to humiliate people who are supposedly INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY seems like a prelude to a morality police state.
Now, im as against DUI as any sane person, but theres a law about cruel and unusual punishment.
You cant publicly scorn someone for doing Unlawful Deed A and not for B, C and D.
Since when does being a Socialist mean 'someone who has a different opinion than me'?
Will this evolve into a DUI Offender Registry?
But the difference is, they blur the faces of those who haven't been found guilty (yet). They are also a news organization with no legal power, but this is a police (military) organization. These police are assuming guilt for anyone merely charged, so I suppose it's natural for them to also apply punishment.
A few years in the future when the police will be scouring the streets performing judgments and executions on the spot, I'm afraid it will be too late for anyone to do anything about our lost rights. By then the court system will be a rarely used dusty relic of the past.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Because we all check twitter feeds containing nothing but hundreds of random names on the off-chance that someone we know has been drink driving.
That's not the law though is it and the police have proved many times they're not above faking the evidence. The police and the CPS or DA (or local equivalent) are biased, they have an incentive to get convictions, so I certainly wouldn't want them acting as judge as well.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
In a hundred years, your grand-grand-grand kids will have fun googling their ancestry and finding that they were driving under influence ... .. sorry we can't employ convicts here"
nowait - doesn't the DA know that the internet never forgets? That anyone can find this informatiuon by just googling someone's name?
"Hello i'm here for the job interview"- "Oh I see you had a DUI 32 years ago
Of course a person can be charged with drunk driving if they haven't had anything to drink. Reasons for this might include, but will not be limited to:
1. Evil cops (not likely, IMO, but definitely possible).
2. Deluded cops (more likely, but still a stretch).
3. Overzealous cops, particularly if you're exhibiting something that looks like inebriated behavior but isn't; for example, several neurological conditions can cause you to have slurred speech or an unsteady gait but still be fine to drive.
4. Getting framed by an enemy.
5. Being acquainted with Ashton Kutcher.
In addition, as several posters have already pointed out, a person can be charged with drunk driving if they haven't actually driven and are not going to drive.
I'd be fine with capital punishment for people convicted of causing an accident while driving drunk, but I'm a little uneasy about draconian punishments for those who haven't actually caused damage yet, and I'm adamantly opposed to punishment of people without due process. To me, publishing names of arrestees is punishment without due process.
It is an essential part of the justice process that arrest records are public, to prevent secret detentions, etc. This has already been discussed by other posters, and is why such records are already public, just not accessible in such a convenient manner. A group of private individuals could easily republish such records.
Now, it is clear that the police should not be doing what is being described here, but the reason is that shaming is not part of the job description of the police. The reason is not that arrest records should be kept secret.
The more fundamental problem here, if any, is a misunderstanding of the law by those reading that twitter feed. A list of charges should be interpreted as nothing more than a list of charges - it is not a list of guilty people, and even if it were, it is not a list of people to be abused. Any employer refusing to give you a job on the basis of being on a list of charged people, unless perhaps they had determined that you were still moving through the legal process and your job involves driving, would have been a very dangerous employer to work for. Before you give me the argument that you need a roof over your head more than you need a fair and just employer, the only reason for the power imbalance is so many people like you fearing the loss of little comfort.
Note that it has not yet been proven that the public in general think a charged person is a convicted person. This sort of thing needs to be studied scientifically, as a basis for educating where necessary to disabuse the people of serious misconceptions about the legal process.
People aren't guilty of DWI until they are convicted - they're a drunk driver the moment they drive while pissed.
Considering that this policy has the potential to harm innocent people, it should really come with a sensible plan to monitor its effectiveness, and to monitor its unintended side effects.
If it doesn't do any good, or if it screws up too many innocent people lives; there should be figures to show it.
However, your characterization of drunk drivers is just wrong. They ARE incredibly dangerous. They ARE reckless, and while they may not intentionally be seeking out people to mow down, they are showing a tremendous disregard for those same people.
As is the 80 year old whose children don't have the nerve to take his license away. As is the car full of teens joking around and wrestling with each other. As is the soccer mom making 'play-date' plans for her kid on her cell phone.
However of those, at least around D.C., only the drunk driver has a specific set of laws that may well ruin their life, even if they never cause any harm. If they do cause harm, the punishment is considerably worse than for anyone else.
Drunk Driving laws are a prophylactic and perverted form of justice. They punish on the theory that you may hurt someone in the future. Should we accept laws saying 'Because you own a gun, you are probably going to be a murderer'?
Reckless endangerment of life is that always, regardless of if one is drunk, old, young, or scatter-brained.
Look, we've had the internet for a while now and it's time that everybody understands the implications. The internet is not like chit-chat. What is published on the internet does not disappear and is not limited to a local audience. The internet is a searchable archive. A perp walk has limited consequences. "Just" making it an online perp walk fundamentally changes the consequences, not just the medium.
I think anyone in this district who interacts with law enforcement should twitter accusations of police brutality and prosecutorial malfeasance.
I mean, as long as were making public unproven allegations both sides should suffer the same consequences.
if they publish names of people that are only *charged*, it needs to be stopped and those responsible put in jail. While it is technically public record, there is no need to broadcast a persons name just due to suspicion and would just end up ruining peoples lives for nothing.
Now, if they want to publish people *convicted*, and the story just used the wrong term, more power too them.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's nice to know that "not accidentally killing someone" is 3rd on your list of reasons to not drive drunk. Or maybe the word I'm looking for is sociopathic.
Getting behind the wheel while drunk shows a fundamental contempt for human life.
Now, I don't drive, so take what I say with the amount of salt you deem necessary. I do get on my bicycle after partying, though.
When I'm drunk, I'm not particularly thinking that my actions may kill someone. I also don't think I've ever harmed anyone (including myself) in traffic, and in all the dangerous situations I've been in, I think I acted prudently before ending up in that situation (I'm not saying "it's their fault!"---sometimes bad things just happen even though everybody is acting responsibly).
Now, suppose you drive, and your traffic danger history sounds similar to mine. Are you really going to entertain the likelihood of you harming or killing people?
If the though "I might harm someone" never enters your mind, are you really showing a contempt for human life?
It's a different thing to think "I might harm someone" and then not follow through on that thought (the next thought might be "how likely is that?"; not asking that question, or ignoring that answer, that might be contempt).
I'd love to know how a drunk driving charge can be justified for someone in a parked car.
Well, I can tell you how it goes according to the law. This however does not explain the 'how' any better though.
Apparently all that is required under the law, is to have a BAC above a specified number, be physically within *12 inches of your car, and have the cars keys on your person.
[*] This number is for my city, will probably be different elsewhere
Sleeping in the car back seat qualifies (As does sleeping UNDER the car yet still outside of it, or even in the bed of a pickup truck)
As long as the keys are in your pocket (Which 99.9% of the time they will be, the other 0.1% of the time they will be in your hand, or dropped near the car trying to unlock the door) then you have violated the DWI laws.
After violating the law, all that is required to be convicted is the BAC reading taken at the time, and a statement from the officer that shows the above points have been met.
The most common 'advice' from police officers is to not go near your car, or if you do toss the keys outside a couple feet away (Sounds like excellent advice if your goal is to have your car stolen)
Personally I live in a city where cab drivers are required to pickup/dropoff anyone calling from a bar who says they are drunk and need a ride home. The state reimburses them for these jobs.
So best case you have no DUI charges at all, but have to leave your car in a bar parking lot overnight to be broken in to. But I have to say that is slightly better than a DUI charge that did or did not make it to conviction.