Pubdate: Thu, 09 Oct 2003
Source: Macon Telegraph (GA)
Copyright: 2003 The Macon Telegraph Publishing Company
Contact:  http://www.macontelegraph.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/667

HIGH COURT'S DUI LAW RULING RIGHTS A WRONG

The Georgia Supreme Court this week overturned a state law used to help 
convict drunk drivers that allowed accident investigators at the scene of 
automobile accidents to ignore basic rights guaranteed under the Fourth 
Amendment. The ruling, overturning the "implied consent" law, says police 
must now have probable cause that alcohol or drugs were involved in the 
collision before they can require drivers, involved in an accident with 
injuries, to submit to blood or breath tests. The existing law had ignored 
the probable cause test and punished drivers who refused to take the test 
with loss of driving privileges for up to one year.

It's a good ruling that most legal experts agree will have little negative 
impact on getting drunk and drug-impaired drivers off the highways. And 
it's a gratifying personal rights development in light of the erosion of 
many of those rights under the guise of the greater good that is occurring 
at the federal level, most notably in some of the Patriot Act provisions.

Georgia's "implied consent" law allowing investigating officers to require 
the sobriety tests - or have your refusal to do so used in court against 
you - when there was no evidence of such causal impairment was a clear 
violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, most 
prosecutors and defendants' attorneys agreed. What is at issue is whether 
those individual's rights against unreasonable searches without cause 
should override the public safety concerns in obtaining convictions of 
impaired drivers.

Most prosecutors agree that there will be little effect from the ruling in 
their ability to deal with drunk driving cases, although a few Atlanta 
prosecutors have expressed high concerns that DUI charges brought in some 
high profile cases already in the court system may be thrown out because of 
this ruling.

There is no special need to depart from the constitutionally guaranteed 
probable cause test in injury cases. Police investigating an accident will 
now have to document reasons for requiring the test, but the circumstances 
of the crash, the behavior, smell and even physical evidence (such as 
liquor or beer bottles) on the scene should provide ample cause for testing 
those drivers who need it and eliminate the threat of punitive action 
against those who don't but object to the assumption of guilt.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens