A promising new tactic in the “War on Drunk Driving”:  Go after the lawyers….or their wives.

Arrested for DUI Without Drinking a Drop of Alcohol

Phoenix, AZ.  May 29 – Heather Squires was the designated driver. Never exactly a fun thing, but a college buddy of her husband’s was driving up from Tucson to celebrate his acceptance into law school. So when her husband, Jason, asked, Heather said yes.

At Chuy’s in Tempe, Heather’s brother and her husband and the soon-to-be-law-school student knocked off four pitchers of beer. Everybody was having a great time.

Around 9:30 p.m., they decided to head home. So they piled into Jason Squires’ new pickup truck. As planned, Heather drove.

They didn’t get very far.

A motorcycle cop spotted the truck as Heather drove through the intersection of Baseline Road and Mesa Drive. Not familiar with the truck, she’d failed to flip on her lights. Soon the cop was flipping on his — and they were flashing.

Heather was ordered out of the vehicle and almost immediately handcuffed. She was taken to the Mesa Police Department and charged with both driving under the influence and driving with a blood alcohol content over the legal limit. The truck was searched, then impounded.

Heather Squires was no different from any of the thousands of people who’ve been charged with DUI this year in Arizona. They drank, they got busted, and now — thanks to the toughest DUI laws in the nation — they can expect jail time, big fines, and an ignition interlock.

Except for one thing.

Heather Squires’ blood alcohol content that night was 0.00. The records prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that she was an exemplary designated driver.

She hadn’t had a drop to drink…

The arrest should never have happened. And though Mesa police quietly dismissed the charges against her a month later, her case still raises serious questions.

Let’s face it. The DUI situation in Arizona is out of control. As I reported earlier this year, drivers are getting popped after just one or two drinks, with blood alcohol contents far below the legal limit.

But Heather’s case is the only one I’ve seen in which the driver drank nothing. It certainly makes me wonder whether her treatment was related to the fact that her husband, Jason, is a DUI attorney based in Mesa.

A few months before Heather’s arrest, in fact, he helped a client beat the rap for extreme DUI at a jury trial, even though records suggest the guy was guilty.

The officer who arrested the guy? Bond Gonzalez — the same cop who would arrest Heather Squires.

I’ve posted in the past about efforts to attack defense attorneys who defend citizens accused of drunk driving.  See, MADD’s Solution: Get Rid of the Lawyers; New MADD Strategy: Shut Down the Lawyers; MADD: Lawyers the Cause of Continuing DUI Fatalities.  But going after their wives is a new one…

I’ve written repeatedly in the past about the inaccuracy and unreliability of the various breath machines used to estimate blood alcohol concentrations.  See, for example, How Breathalyzers Work (and Why They Don’t), Why Breathalyzers Don’t Measure Alcohol and Breathalyzer Inaccuracy: Testing During the Absorptive State.  

Yet, our MADD-influenced laws increasingly ignore scientific evidence and rely upon these machines to establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt — assisted by more laws that now presume guilt based upon a reading over .08% from one of these machines.  See Whatever happened to the Presumption of Innocence?.  Even more laws presume that the blood-alcohol level at the time of testing was the same as when driving, say, three hours earlier.  See How to Overcome Scientific Facts: Pass a Law.   Quite literally, these devices have become judge, jury and executioner. 

However, some judges across the country are beginning to take a closer look at these machines…

Breath Test Won’t Prove Some DUIs

A Snohomish District Court judge says there are too

many questions about reliability. But the tests are

accepted at Everett Municipal Court.

Everett, WA.  May 20 – Police and prosecutors better have more than a breath test to prove someone was driving drunk when they walk into one Everett judge’s courtroom.

Snohomish County District Court Judge Tam Bui last week ruled that she will not accept breath tests measuring a person’s alcohol level because of a litany of problems with the state’s testing process.

The way the state has been conducting the tests is flawed, and until changes are made at the Washington State Patrol Toxicology Lab, the results can’t be used as evidence in her courtroom, Bui ruled…

Jurors should be allowed to hear the results of the breath tests, as well as the problems with the lab and make their own decisions about the weight to give test evidence, said Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Charlie Blackman.

“The decision essentially says that many small errors, which in our opinion have no scientific significance, result in the courts viewing the evidence not reliable enough for a jury to consider,” Blackman said. “We think that’s wrong. We think you can trust a jury to sort this out.”

Trust a jury to sort it out?  After the judge is required by law to instruct the jury that they must rebuttably presume guilt if the machine says .08% ?

For those who have inquired about the quote in this blog’s heading, the following is from a presiding justice’s dissenting opinion in a Pennsylvania appellate decision affirming a DUI conviction:

I must vigorously dissent from the well-written opinion of the majority, as it seems we are coming perilously close to turning a blind eye to questionable conduct by our police officers. While I acknowledge that our police officers are charged with the awesome and sometimes onerous responsibility of protecting the public, I cannot sanction the whisperings of the majority that that protection comes at the deprivation of the constitutional rights of citizenship. We do not want a police state, and it seems we are on the precipice of becoming one, in the name of DUI. I suggest that the Court, and the police, can ill afford to sanction this type of conduct.  (Emphasis added.)

Fortunately, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed the lower court ruling and, in so doing, agreed with the dissenting justice’s comments. Comes the dawn?

(Thanks to Fred Slone and Troy McKinney.)