They handcuffed me and took me to the jail. I got 0.00 on the breathelizer. If I had not taken the field tests, that would have been it. Instead, they made me sign that I would allow all the tests they wanted to do or be fined $250 and lose my licence. So they did more balancing acts. I passed all the other tests I think. Except I was crying the whole time. The report is incomplete because they do not have the results of the urine test yet. They won’t tell me what they have on me, if anything. I have to go back to court May 5.

They want me to take tests to prove I am still capable of driving. This requires evaluationd from a doctora, eye examiner. And I think I’ll have to do it even if my case is dismissed. I’m 55 and a very cautious driver. I’ve never even got a speeding ticket.

Beyond that, both Patrick here and Patterico over on Volokh.com, smart guys that they are, don’t supply much of a motivation. Here, it’s “having nothing better to do.” Hardly much of a reason to engage in a complicated, unlikely-to-succeed, and preposterously easy to defeat setup.

Revenge? Err . . . as one will recall, it was Jason Squires who, on behalf of his (probably guilty) client, beat Gonzo in court. A good, professional police officer (I have no reason to think that Gonzo is) would shrug that off, but even a corrupt, mischievous attorney (and I have no reason to think Squires is that, either) can’t get revenge over having won.

That said, and while IANAL, the credibility of a witness is, as I understand it, always relevant, and if and when Squires proves, in court, that Gonzo has lied in official matters, his PD may well end up deciding it’s better to put him in charge of something where credibility is less important.

You know: promote him to Chief?

Maybe we should throw out our quaint procedures because an idiot judge and two idiot lawyers who live on the other side of the planet screwed up? Or maybe, just maybe, we’ll continue to use procedure and the rule of law, ’cause we’re funny like that.

It is funny though. Put a Foster on my tab and shotgun it mate.

They were also very embarrassed about what happened and initially did not want to tell anyone about it, but eventually decided that letting others know about Officer Bond Gonzalez and what he did was the right thing to do.

The officer wrote on his Admin Per Se suspension form that he smelled the strong odor of alcohol on her breath. Not on her clothes. Officer Gonzalez lied. Plain and simple.

Officers will routinely remove an individual from the car and away from passengers in order to isolate any odors. In his report, the officer stated that the reason he removed Heather from the car was to be able to distinguish any odor of alcohol coming from her from the passengers. Apparently, Officer Gonzalez never followed through on this.

Another lawyer is about to do jail time over here for nominating another driver for a series of traffic offences his car was sighted at. Er, only problem is, the nominated driver was deceased at the time of the offences.

The be-all end-all moment for me was a recent case where I found out a lawyer wished to lodge a formal complaint against me. I pointed out that my conversation with his client was recorded on my pocket mp3 device throughout the entire arrest. Surprise, surprise- the lawyer dropped everything without even listening to the recording, and his client turned up to court alone and plead guilty.

Funny old world ain’t it?

Not nearly cynical enough. You forgot to explain why both the miscreant officer and his supervisor played along with the setup by refusing to require the driver to submit to a breathalyzer test, which would have made it clear that she wasn’t drinking, and would have saved the officer from having to invent her smelling of alcohol. (Note: not the car. “Strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from breath.” Emphasis added.)

It’s actually a conspiracy by the officer, his supervisor, the lawyer, and her husband. And throw in Steve Berry, the spokesman for the department, who forgot to invent a story about how both Gonzalez’s and his supervisor’s breathalyzer’s, along with their homework, was eaten by the dog.

Designated driver? Check.
Refused roadside sobriety test? Check (and good for her!)
Woman incarcerated and blood test comes back 0.0? Check.
Falsifying a police report in a petty attempt to get revenge? Oh you’d better believe that’s a …

Oh yeah, and cops lie. Always. Every time they sit in the witness box, every piece of paperwork they file, even when they know there is a goddamned camera on their dashboard recording everything they do and say, they still fucking LIE.

Did I mention that police officers are dishonest? And don’t get me started on prosecutors…

There are man collateral consequences to a DUI that go beyond the court sentence, fines, loss of drivers’ license, shy-high insurance rates for several years. For example, one DUI bars you from entering Canada for 5 years, a second one bars you for life. One DUI results in the loss of a commercial drivers’ license for 1 year, a second DUI costs you your CDI for life. This is in all states by the way because it is federal law.

A DUI also has consequences for professional licenses of lawyers, doctors, engineers, architects, etc.

There are many more and the injustice of it is that a DUI does make you an alcoholic or even a dangerous driver because the BAC level that will get you in trouble, .08, is a political and not a scientific standard. The drivers that are actually dangerous and cause accidents invariably have BAC levels of .15 and above.

But no one cares. This is not about logic, justice or safety. It is about politics and allowing a bunch of MADD women work out their anger and hatred.

By tugging at the heart strings of the public and sabotaging the public’s ability to think clearly about drunk driving laws we have a system that no longer has much of anything to do with making the highways safer and mostly to do with just getting as many convictions as possible. The police officer who will get the most public praise and enjoy the most job security will be the one with the most DUI arrests.

In one locality that I am familiar with almost all the DUI police reports stated that the officer’s first clue that he might be dealing with a drunk driver was that he noticed the driver used the driver door for balance and support as he exited the vehicle. In any case that went to trial the officer would testify to that.

So the local DUI Bar set up a video camera to take videos of police officers exiting their patrol cars in the police station parking lot. Every one of them was caught on video using their driver side door for balance and support while exiting the vehicle. The video tape was given to the local TV stations. Since then the police reports do not mention leaning on the door, and it has not come up in any cases that went to court.

Looks like Mexican police corruption is headed your way. Buckle up.

“because you dont have a clue about how law enforcement works.”

The problem isn’t that we don’t know how law enforcement works.

The problem is that we DO KNOW how it works.

The fact that you don’t see the inherent problems associated with institutions, especially institutions with power over our daily lives, speaks volumes about your choice to remain ignorant even when the facts are clearly pointed out to you.

Law enforcement, as an institution, resists change unless that change benefits themselves, usually in the form of more power. Even if individual officers understand and desire the kind of change or reform the public at large wants, as individuals they are still at the mercy of the institution. Police understand this and either decide to become institutionalized or they leave (burn out). Obviously, this helps to perpetuate the institution.