'No Refusal' DUI Checkpoints Coming To Florida?

schwit1 writes "With New Year's Eve only days away, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration expects this to be one of the deadliest weeks of the year on the roads. But now a new weapon is being used in the fight against drunk driving. ... Florida is among several states now holding what are called 'no refusal' checkpoints. It means if you refuse a breath test during a traffic stop, a judge is on site, and issues a warrant that allows police to perform a mandatory blood test."

Comments

Bad Idea

[FCAdcock]

1: I don't know where you are, but New Years isn't "days away" here... It's here now.

2: Doesn't Florida fall under the same constitution as the rest of the US? Refusing to take a brethalyzer test is a constitutional right under the 5th amendment, and as much as I'd like to see all drunk drivers charged with attempted murder, I don't see how a judge can issue a warrant without evidence simply because someone exercises their rights. Two wrongs do not make a right in this case for sure.

Re:Bad Idea

[v1]

it does sound like the judge is using your refusal to take the test as probable cause to issue a warrant.

Sounds like a 4th amendment issue. "We don't have probable cause, so we can't get a warrant. MAY we search your house?" "NO you may not." "OK then, your refusal to allow us to search gives us probable cause to believe you're hiding something illegal. Now that we have probable cause, here's the warrant. Step aside."

The 4th amendment is specifically worded to prevent that sort of abuse. (before this, in England, probable cause was "required", but refusal WAS probable cause in the law's eyes, so it didn't matter) I don't see why simply having a judge on site changes anything. Actually I don't see why they can even do that do you once they haul you off to jail for refusal. It probably comes back to your agreeing to the test as a condition for receiving your state-issued drivers' license?

Re:Bad Idea

[NNKK]

That's not the way things are run, he's just an uninformed twit. In most, if not all states, you agree to surrender to breath testing at the discretion of law enforcement as part of getting your license. Courts tend to interpret the power a little more narrowly than cops would like, but if they have even the slightest reasonable suspicion, you're not going to get anywhere.

An on-the-spot judge is new, though, and is going to be problematic. We take separation of powers pretty seriously here. A judge is not a police officer, and shouldn't be acting like one. The commingling is going totrigger a massive legal fight.

Re:seems simple

[dgatwood]

Unless the previous person blew high enough that there's residual alcohol inside the machine.

As far as I'm concerned, probable cause means probable cause. If they want to stop everybody at random checkpoints like the gestapo, fine, but don't make people who seem sober take any stupid breath tests or blood tests. If there's no probable cause to believe that the person has been drinking, such tests just plain don't pass constitutional muster.

Oh, and you can bet a blood test on the side of the road won't meet HIPAA requirements for electronic medical records.

Hope those states have good lawyers. They're going to need them.

MADD is out of control.

[olsmeister]

And the problem is, all politicians are too big of pussies to rein them in. Their eventual goal is 0% legal BAC and probably after that, a complete prohibition on alcohol at all. And you know what? I think they'll eventually get it. Baby steps. It's been going on for decades.

No, I don't condone drunk driving. I'm sorry people get hurt and die. But at some point, you have to stand up and say, I think our system is OK as-is.

Why not just force them to take the damn breathalyzer rather than jabbing them with a needle? Do they have an RN there for that, or does Barney Fife take a crack at it?

We've been doing it for years.......

[Stavros_Oz]

Do it the way we have been successfully doing it here in Victoria, Australia for over two decades. Random breath testing, either preliminary testing performed by ANY cop doing ANY stop using a hand held device, or process an entire stream of traffic using one of thirty-odd 'booze buses', each equipped with several cops who breath test everybody, AND can also perform the second stage (analytical) breath test on site (in the specially equipped bus). Yeah, you CAN refuse a breath test, that's easy, but you're then charged with refusing to take a breath test which carries the same penalty as if you blew the end off the range!! No we don't enforce 'mandatory taking of blood', after all that would be considered a deprivation of a citizen's rights in some enlightened cultures. But refusal = guilty, it's your choice!! Also for the past few years the booze buses are being converted to booze/drugs buses and a saliva test is used to check drivers for cannabis or amphetamine use. Some may scream of invasion of privacy, but the statistics clearly reflect the good that is done by this initiative. Road fatalities have fallen by 2/3!!! Injuries have fallen a similar amount. Stavros_Oz, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

Re:Why would you refuse a breathalyzer?

[The Snowman]

They get to pass their own laws?

Subject to the Florida constitution and in some cases the US constitution, yes.

Actually, in all cases the U.S. Constitution. It is the supreme law of the land, and supersedes all other legal documents on United States soil. The fourth amendment is in full force in Florida and would be a valid defense against these checkpoints. Having the judiciary working hand in hand with the police and rubberstamping warrants on the site of the alleged crime (the checkpoint) is, in my opinion, a violation of reasonable search and seizure: state law be damned.

Re:Why would you refuse a breathalyzer?

[RobertLTux]

the hook here is BAC has a legally "known" decay rate so they acn and will in fact say that if your BAC was 0.08 when tested then it is assumed that WHEN YOU WERE PULLED OVER your BAC was 0.10 and therefore you get tagged for DUI.

Re:Why would you refuse a breathalyzer?

[wiredlogic]

I just don't understand any legitimate concern to decline a breathalyzer test.

The government loves uninformed sheep like yourself.

Breathalyzers do NOT measure blood alcohol content. Instead, they use a chemical reaction as a proxy that is not specifically sensitive to just ethanol. It is possible to trigger false positives with certain foods. On top of that there is no accounting for different body sizes and metabolic rates and any host of other biological variables. There is no possible way to derive an accurate measurement using these instruments.

The industry and the courts want the public to stay in the dark on this issue because it is a convenient expedient to convicting drunks. Some countries have tried to dodge the issue by classifying intoxication by breath alcohol content but these machines can't even measure that with verifiable accuracy across the general population.

If a cop asks you to take a breathalyzer test you should ask to see the calibration sticker. No up to date cal, no good. Then ask him to explain how the device works, in detail. His ignorance of the device will be important should you end up in court over the issue.

Re:Whats next?

[Crudely_Indecent]

I've seen this tactic used.

At one point I lived in Lake Elsinore California in a second story apartment with a balcony that looked down the worst street in town (it was really cheap.) The whole subdivision was tied together by a road called Quail - basically a horseshoe that was the only road in or out of the subdivision.

Cops blocked both ends of Quail and started a house-to-house search with judges walking the street. If you didn't voluntarily allow your home to be searched, the judge would walk up, sign a warrant and the cops would break down your door. No way in or out, no refusal.

My room mates and I sat on the balcony with a cooler full of beer and watched the action. When the cops came to our door and asked "can we search your house" we responded with a question - "Can we stop you?" He answered "No". No need to involve a judge, that would just piss someone off and we didn't need to make any enemies.

We were all handcuffed and put on the living room couch while about 20 cops tore our apartment apart, then left us with a huge mess. They didn't break anything, but we had to replace a lot of food that they dumped out. Clothes were rummaged through, dumped on the floor, walked on. No consideration was made that we weren't the people they were looking for. We got no apology.

We were, however, permitted to return to the balcony to watch the rest of our neighbors get arrested. This began the quietest 2 weeks that neighborhood had ever seen.

Re:Whats next?

[Crudely_Indecent]

They were looking for meth dealers/labs.

They found a lot of them. There were white passenger vans pulling in empty and out full. They also had a U-Haul that would pull in empty, and out full of lab gear.

Humorous, yes...we all had a laugh as we were watching the rest of the neighborhood get arrested and cleaning up the mess. "Holy shit dude, we just got raided....We're like the only ones left on the street."

Disturbing, yes. We had done nothing wrong, but were treated as guilty until proven innocent.