I don’t know which is worse, that the city of Cleveland requires a “music permit” and a “pool table permit,” or that failing to obtain one is a criminal offense.

Tennessee Sen. Rosalind Kurita has an idea:

Defense attorneys would be banned from advertising their expertise with drunken driving cases under a bill advancing in the Senate.

Sen. Rosalind Kurita, a Clarksville Democrat, successfully added the provision to a bill that would create an online registry of repeat DUI offenders in Tennessee.

Kurita says officials have a hard enough time convicting drunken drivers without lawyers advertising their expertise in the field and offering discounts to DUI defendants.

Hat tip to Rick Davis.

Police arrested, cuffed, and hauled her away in front of her kid–all because a man in a restaurant mistook the glasses of water she was drinking for wine, then called the police. The comments to the story are rather interesting, too. Read them and draw your own conclusions about this mysterious man who was watching her in the restaurant.

The reporter finds another case in which a woman was charged with DUI after blowing .03 on a breath test, because the cops were convinced she was on drugs. When lab tests proved them wrong, prosecutors pushed ahead with the charges anyway.

In both cases, the women eventually beat the charges, but incurred thousands of dollars in legal bills. That seems to be the choice in these cases. Even if you’re completely innocent, your options are to plead guilty and accept your punishment, or fight the charges, in which you risk the wrath of the judge if you’re convicted, and spending thousands of dollars you won’t get back even if you’re acquitted.

Here’s the fun part:

But I was struck by something as I talked to Sifford. She begged me not to read too much into the police report — in the officer’s account of her field sobriety tests, she was sniffing constantly, her pulse was above normal, and she swayed. Reading that, without the results of the urine test, you might assume she was coked-up.

But that’s the thing about these reports. You can see it on Shannon Wilcutt’s, too.

Shannon Wilcutt had a 0.02 blood alcohol content, but the police report notes a “moderate” odor of alcohol on her breath. How is that possible? It also says that her speech was “slurred” and she had dried blood on her lips. That couldn’t possibly be related to dental surgery, could it?

The cops were building their cases; it was up to Wilcutt and Sifford to find lawyers willing to ferret out the truth.

The officers are only doing their job, but their job is to bust drunk drivers. That’s what the Legislature wants, what the governor wants, and what the public wants. From the minute the cops pull you over, they assume you’re drunk.

It’s your job to prove yourself innocent.

These aren’t even the worst cases. The California Highway Patrol was recently exposed for using standard, cut-and-paste boilerplate about “the scent of alcohol” and “slurred speech” in all DWI arrests. Some defendants whose blood tests came back negative filed an open records request, revealing the word-for-word descriptions on the arrest reports. Wouldn’t that be pretty good evidence that the officers had perjured themselves?

Congratulations to Dartblog, a conservative blog at Dartmouth University that won the America’s Future Foundation’s best college blog competition, for which your humble Agitator was one of the judges.

Longtime Agitator favorite the Oregon Commentator came in second. And Indiana University grad student and CNET blogger Chris Soghoian’s terrific “Surveillance State” came in third.

I’ll also use this opportunity to once again link to the Oregon Commentator’s classic article “Contains Sulfites,” a wine-tasting tour of your local convenience store that, though it’s now ten years old, just might be the funniest thing anyone in college has ever written, ever.

Police in Wisconsin broke up a kegger last week. A root beer kegger. Wisconsin high school senior Dustin Zebro was irked that some of his friends were kicked off varsity sports teams after school officials spotted Facebook photos of them drinking from red cups. So to show that red plastic ups don’t always mean beer (he’s right, I remember putting mixed drinks in them, too), he threw a root beer kegger in the hopes of triggering more suspensions, then making school officials look silly.

Turns out, the cops were called in on the gag, too. On the one hand, kudos to them for taking it in stride and not overreacting. On the other hand, unless you accept the premise that any gathering of teenagers is probable cause for a search, I’m not sure why the breath tests were in order. Shouldn’t the cop have found actual evidence of alcohol, first? The video doesn’t make clear if the tests were voluntary or coerced. Would’ve been interesting to see what might have happened if one of the kids refused.

Story here.

Dazed and Confused-esque "documentary" here:

Yesterday I posted about Massachusetts Rep. James Fagan’s attempt to slash the state’s BAC limit from .08 to .02, effectively zero tolerance. I also noted that Fagan is a criminal defense attorney specializing in DWI cases.

Via the comments, I see that today, Boston Herald columnist Margerie Eagan explains that Fagan’s bill seems to be an attempt to point out the absurdities of existing drunk driving laws.

I’m not a huge fan of introducing absurd legislation to make a political point, but if Fagan’s objective was to get lawmakers to stop passing knee-jerk DWI legislation, I was too harsh on him.

Massachusetts state Rep. James Fagan wants to slash the state’s legal blood-alcohol driving limit to .02.

It’s entirely coincidence, of course, that when Fagan isn’t thinking up ridiculous laws for the legislature, he’s a DWI attorney in private practice.

Someone ought to let Virginia’s David Albo know that he’s being given a run for his money as king of legislative douchebaggery.

So I was looking at Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s “States Progress Report” chart (pdf) while researching an upcoming article. There are several things wrong with the chart, most notably that they measure “success” by percentage of traffic fatalities that involved alcohol. This is problematic for several reasons. The first is of course the usual complaint about the overly broad definition of “alcohol-related.” But it’s also the wrong way to measure progress. There will always be a group of hardcore alcoholics on the road who are impervious to PR campaigns, roadblock checkpoints, and the like. As technology makes cars safer, then, the total number of traffic fatalities is going to continue to decline. But that core group of alcoholics will still be out there, meaning the percentage of total traffic fatalities caused by drunk driving is likely to increase. A better measure would be to look at the number of deaths caused by drunk drivers for every million miles driven.

The other mistake with the chart is that MADD is measuring progress by whether a state went up or down in the percentage of highway fatalities related to alcohol in the previous year. So if a state has shown 20 years of progress, then blipped up a bit (as many have, I’d argue in part because they’ve adopted some of MADD’s counterproductive policy recommendations), MADD says they need all sorts of newer, tougher laws.

But this, of course, assumes that MADD is interested in displaying data in an intellectually honest way. We all know by now that that isn’t the case. Which brings me to the more amusing problem with the chart: For each and every state, MADD looks very carefully at the numbers, then concludes that–surprise!–the numbers demand that particular state must adopt the organization’s latest public policy crusade–mandatory ignition interlock devices for first-time offenders.

Utah, for example, has by far the lowest percentage of traffic fatalities related to alcohol. MADD says of Utah, “The nation’s best, but an alarming 64% increase in fatalities in 2006 means they need to require interlocks for all offenders.”

Hmm. Okay. Well how about Alaska, which had a 30 percent decrease in percentage of alcohol-related fatalities over the previous year? MADD writes, “Had a significant decrease in 2006, but will need to pass mandatory interlock
law in order to sustain the decreases.”

How about Nebraska, which has the third lowest percentage of alcohol-related fatalities overall, and showed a 5 percent drop from 2005 to 2006? MADD says, “Among the nation’s best, but they need to pass a mandatory interlock law to sustain their decreases.”

In fact, according to MADD just about every state “needs an interlock law,” no matter what the numbers say. Which would be fine, except that MADD pretends to have arrived at its strong recommendations for an interlock law only after carefully studying the numbers.

BTW, I’m not dead set against interlocks. They make some sense for repeat offenders, though even then there are some problems with the idea (emergencies, the offender could merely drive a friend or relative’s car, etc.). But no, I don’t think someone who gets a DWI for blowing .085 should have to pay $1,000 and blow in a tube before starting a car for the rest of his life, in addition to the thousands of dollars in fines and fees he’ll already have to pay.

• Yet another study confirms the benefits of moderate alcohol consumption.
  

  After 4 years of follow-up, new moderate drinkers had a 38% lower chance of developing cardiovascular disease than did their non-drinking counterparts. Even after adjusting for physical activity, Body Mass Index, demographic and cardiac risk factors, this difference persisted.

• Four-year-olds allegedly handcuffed by school safety officer for refusing to take a nap.
• Exhaustive review of 600,000 documents seized after our invasion in 2003 finds no connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
• The march to post-reductio America continues. Minnesota lawmaker wants to ban scents in public schools.
• Conservative “Blogger of the Year” and terminal douche Ace of Spades on why he defended GOP hypocrite sex customer Sen. David Vitter but is now jumping all over Democratic hypocrite sex customer Gov. Eliot Spitzer:
  

  “Shut up, that’s why.”

  Can’t argue with that!

Several states are considering a return to a more sensible drinking age:

More than two decades after the U.S. set the national drinking age at 21, a movement is gaining traction to revisit the issue and consider allowing Americans as young as 18 to legally consume alcohol.

Serious discussions already are under way in several states.

In Vermont, the Legislature has formed a task force that will study whether the drinking age should be lowered.

In South Dakota, a petition is circulating that would ask the state to allow 19- and 20-year-olds to legally buy beer no stronger than 3.2 percent alcohol, while in Missouri a group is attempting to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to get a measure on the November ballot to lower the state’s drinking age to 18.

And in South Carolina and Wisconsin, lawmakers have proposed that active-duty military personnel younger than 21 be allowed to buy alcohol, a move similar to one that was rejected last year in New Hampshire.

“What we’re beginning to see are the early indications that the public is at least ready to consider re-examining this issue,” said John McCardell, a former Vermont college president who runs Choose Responsibility, a non-profit group that advocates alcohol education for young adults and favors lowering the drinking age to 18.

The article contains a predictably hyperbolic reaction from MADD, including the obligatory…

“If you lower the drinking age, people are going to die,” said Jeffrey Levy, a member of MADD’s national board of directors whose son died in an alcohol-related crash.

[...]

Yet Levy, whose son died in a car crash while drinking underage, does not believe that taking the taboo out of alcohol will make teenagers responsible while using it.

“There are those who say that you have to get to the point where young people can drink in moderation,” he said. “But that defies the reality of the college experience. The suggestion that kids drink because it’s against the law is ludicrous. They drink because it’s the culture on college campuses, because there are so often no consequences and because there is alcohol everywhere.”

MADD reps often note that they got into the organization after a family member was killed in some sort of alcohol-related accident.  I don’t mean to denigrate their loss, but it’s too often used as a ploy to put the other side at an immediate disadvantage.  The problem is, if you press, the circumstances of the accident not only don’t support their position, they often argue against it.  I’ve had a few debates with MADD reps over the .08 standard who start by giving their story about a loved one killed or maimed by a drunk driver.  But when I’ved ask them what the BAC of the drunk driver was, it’s inevitably some ridiculous figure like .18.

Same thing applies here.  I’m sorry for Levy’s loss.  But how is his son’s death relevant, here?  If he “died in a car crash while drinking underage,” that suggests at minimum that the 21 drinking age didn’t prevent his death.  And it doesn’t at all diminish the argument that the national drinking age actually encourages irresponsible consumption among teens by pushing alcohol use behind closed doors.

My piece on the drinking age here.

A few years ago, the Washington Post ran a story about Debra Bolton, a woman arrested for DUI in Washington, D.C. even though she’d had only a single glass of wine with dinner before driving, and blew just .03 on a breath test. The story generated quite a bit of attention and ridicule for D.C., and put some needed light on the folly of zero tolerance DUI laws.

It was my understanding that in response, the D.C. city council raised the standard, and passed legislation stating you had to blow at least .05 in order for a police officer to arrest you for DUI at his discretion (.08 or higher is de facto guilt).

But D.C. Police Chief Kathy Lanier said something different on a local radio show this morning. The host asked her to list some common excuses she gets from people she has pulled over in her career. She mentioned that it was common for obviously drunk drivers to say “I’ve only had two beers.” At that, the host asked, “But what if you’ve really only had one or two drinks?” Lanier responded that it’s illegal to drive in D.C. after just one drink, and that the city has a zero tolerance policy.

Is Lanier ignorant of the law in D.C.? Or did the city never actually change the law after the Bolton story?

Fresh off saving the Old Dominion from the scourge of frozen beer on a stick last summer, Virginia’s Alcohol Beverage Control is now taking aim at Spanish and Latin restaurants that serve sangria, because the red wine and brandy in the drink violates a 70-year-old, post-Prohibition law forbidding the mix of wine and spirits. A bartender at a tapas restaurant right down the road from me is looking at a year in jail for serving the drink.

Legislators are considering amending the law, but only to allow sangria. Other drinks mixing wine, beer, and/or spirits would still be verboten.

Via my colleague Katherine, a new North Carolina law will strip you of your driver’s license for providing alcohol to a minor. But surely the legislature would have included an exemption for families, right? A beer with dad while watching the game? A sip of champagne on New Year’s Eve?

Nope.

The penalty is important because many underage drinkers get alcohol from friends or family members, said Craig Lloyd, the executive director of the North Carolina chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

The law means that, theoretically, parents could be punished for giving a glass of wine to their 20-year-old son or daughter, even if the 20-year-old never gets behind the wheel.

Lloyd said that’s not excessive.

“It’s a zero-tolerance policy,” he said. “Breaking the law is breaking the law.”

I know what you’re thinking. Surely authorities would never barge into someone’s home and arrest them for allowing their 18, 19, or 20-year-old son or daughter to have a beer, right?

Well, you’d think. But then, if you’d told me police might come to the home of a minor’s parents at 4 am, wake the entire family, then give the girl a breath test to see if she had been drinking at a party held hours earlier, I’d have been dubious, too.

But it’s happened. Never underestimate the absurd lengths to which the zero tolerance crowd will go to keep your kid stone-cold sober.

The New York Times does a nice review of your humble Agitator’s favorite spirit, all-American bourbon. They seem to have neglected my favorite brand and variety, Woodford Reserve. I do like Knob Creek and Virginia Gentleman, too, though I’ve never cared much for Wild Turkey. Oddly, my old stand-by Maker’s Mark has been giving me awful headaches of late, so I’ve stopped drinking it. It’s only Maker’s that does it, and it’s not a hangover situation. Just a couple of glasses do the trick. Bourbon’s not as aggressively filtered as other spirits are, so you’re always risking a rough morning if you get drunk on the stuff.

But it’s great that aged bourbon is finally getting some cred.

Interesting bit of history: Alcohol prohibition nearly killed high-end aged bourbon, though not in the way you might think. One of few ways to get alcohol during Prohibition was by way of a doctor’s prescription for some manufactured ailment. Given its uniquely American heritage (and that importing Irish or Scotch whiskey was of course illegal), bourbon became the spirit of choice for medical scripts. Over the 13 years of Prohibition, the few remaining legally operating distilleries were nearly emptied of their stock, leaving little very little bourbon in the barrels for aging. Scotch and Irish whiskey of course were still being aged and produced overseas, and had high-end, complex vintages ready for import once Prohibition was repealed. After the 21st Amendment, the bourbon industry essentially had to start over, and spent the next several decades trying to catch up. It has only recently finally started to produce the smooth, structured complexities of a good Scotch (though I’m sure most Scotch snobs will insist that even the finest bourbon will never approach a decent single malt).

You can find bourbon tastings in most decent-sized cities, now. Here in D.C., the Distilled Spirits Council sponsors an annual fund-raiser for George Washington’s Mt. Vernon estate where they invite the country’s top bourbon distillers to Virginia to recreate ol’ GW’s best bourbon recipe. I’ve been to the event a few times, but I’ve never tried the stuff. I hear it’s awful, as you might expect any 1700s brew would be.

Last spring, the U.S. Marine Corps Commandant at Camp Pendleton in San Diego made the very sensible decision that Marines aged 18 and over who have just been deployed, or who have just returned from a tour of duty, will be allowed to enjoy a celebratory alcoholic beverage while on base.

Guess who’s outraged?

My colleague Ron Bailey notes that Virginia Commonwealth’s Attorney Jim Camblos lost his bid for reelection this week. Camblos prosecuted the couple who threw a supervised party for their son’s 16th birthday. While the couple did allow the kids to drink alcohol, they ensured that no one could leave the house. When police arrived, about half the kids had consumed no alcohol at all, and the other half where well below .08. Camblos tried to put the couple in prison for more than a decade. They ended up getting 8 years, later reduced to 27 months, which they’re now serving.

I don’t think the couple should have been let off. I don’t think you should be allowed to serve other peoples’ kids alcohol without their permission, even if I do think the drink ages is silly, and the zero tolerance method of enforcing it even sillier. But the couple should have been fined. Prison is absurd.

The Virginia case was one of the reason why I wrote a Washington Post op-ed on the topic back in 2005.

More prosecutors need to be tossed out of office for making bad decisions about what cases to pursue.

In a case that’s been winding it’s way through the courts for some time now, a federal judge has ruled that a Michigan law allowing police to force minors who weren’t driving an automobile to take an alcohol breath test violates the Fourth Amendment.

One of the plaintiffs in the case, Katie Platte, had attended a party for a friend who had just enlisted in the Marines and was headed to Iraq. Police broke up the party, and told attendants they’d go to jail if they refused to take a breath test.

Another plaintiff, Ashley Berden, inadvertently left her purse behind when leaving a post-prom party. A police unit called the “Party Patrol” later broke the party up, and forced attendees to take breath tests. Finding Berden’s purse, police then went to Berden’s parents’ home, woke her and her family at 4 am, and demanded she take a breath test–all without a warrant. She blew .00, then sued.