This disturbing story from Tampa, Florida is typical of the hysteria surrounding DUI cases these days. A man was driving himself to the walk-in doctor’s clinic because he was so ill with pneumonia. On the way there he was stopped by law enforcement. They apparently assumed he was drunk, even though he explained that he was sick and needed medical attention. So, they gave him a breath test and he blew .000. That is, he had no alcohol in his system at all. Did they release him to get to the doctor with their profound apologies? No, he was arrested anyway and booked into the county jail. He sat there until 2:00 a.m. when his family could finally bond him out. He went immediately to the hospital, where he remains today very sick with pneumonia. The story doesn’t say whether charges will be dropped or the case will be prosecuted.
This case reminds me of another case I blogged about before in which a man was pulled over for striking a curb. He could not successfully complete the so-called “field sobriety tests” becuase his body was ravaged from 20 years in the construction industry and was arrested. He blew a .000. So, law enforcement assumed he must be under the influence of drugs. His blood was drawn and it came back negative for any drugs. Yet, the prosecutor insisted on prosecuting the case on the faith that there must have been some kind of intoxication going on. Of course, the guy eventually got the case dismissed, but only after he spent thousands on legal fees.
We see what we want to see. If you want to see a DUI, you will see a DUI, regardless of the reality right in front of your eyes. In the frenzy to catch drunk drivers, many people have put on the blinders and are just operating on their hunches and desires, and completely innocent people are getting swept up. Even when the tests come back negative or under the legal limit, Kansas DUI prosecutions march on. I have had these kinds of cases in my own practice on a regular basis. The foregoing 2 examples are not isolated incidents. Somehow common sense needs to be injected into the process again. Precious resources that could be used to catch real criminals are being spent on cases like these where there is no evidence. The answer, of course, is to take the money out of the DUI equation and you would see a lot less of this wilful blindness to the obvious.