SCOTUS Rules Cops Need Warrant For DUI Test

US Supreme Court rules against use of forced blood draws in all DUI cases.

Justice Sonia SotomayorAmerica's top court does not want cops forcibly extracting blood from motorists without a warrant. The Supreme Court on Wednesday found Tyler McNeely's constitutional rights were violated when he was taken to a hospital for a blood draw after a Missouri state patrolman accused him of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) in October 2010.

The state trooper says McNeely was speeding and weaving across the centerline at around 2:08am on that fateful day. McNeely's speech was slurred, he smelled of alcohol and he failed the standard field sobriety tests. The officer wanted a breath test, but McNeely declined. At a hospital, McNeely also refused a blood tests. The blood was taken anyway and his blood alcohol content (BAC) was measured at 0.15. The officer never sought a warrant.

Read more at: theNewspaper.com

PDF file for the 48-page decision: CLICK HERE

In this day and age it certainly seems rare when the Supreme Court rules against an expansion of police powers. This decision however, seems to be in keeping with the true spirit of the Constitution and the 4th Amendment which states:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized

In many states, like here in New York state where this blog is based, drivers have long maintained a right to refusal for not only blood tests, but also for breathalyzer alcohol analyses as well. A refusal can trigger all sorts of other penalties from the DMV including revocations of your right to drive and monetary civil penalties as well, but a person does still maintain the right to refuse the invasive search... even when a police officer has probable cause to believe you are in criminal violation of the law by driving under the influence of a controlled substance.

This decision by the US Supreme Court upholds that standard.

This decision might also be seen as a precedent for drug/alcohol testing in general, and the testing of welfare recipients in particular. This idea of drug testing people who partake of government services, particularly the poor and destitute, has grown in popularity in recent years, especially among those with a right-wing/conservative political bend. Ironically enough it is usually the political-right who will obstinately defend the strictest interpretations of the Constitution in most instances, but do an about-face when it comes to protecting the liberty of folks whom they view with disdain.

2nd Amendment, 4th Amendment, and the Freedom of Hypocrisy

The conservative will often say that "welfare is not a right" or that is not in the Constitution. This may be true, but driving is not a right either, according to the laws in most states, and what is in the Constitution is the right to be free from invasive searches without a warrant. There is no asterisk there to make exception for welfare recipients, anyone partaking of any government service, or someone driving down a taxpayer funded public highway.

We see in this Supreme Court ruling that even when a police officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that a person is under the influence of a controlled substance, they must still have a warrant before conducting a substance screening on the suspect. Again, this is despite the fact that the officer believes a crime has occurred, this is despite the fact that the person is in a public area and potential threat to public safety. And even though a person holding a driver license has essentially already consented when they made a contractual agreement with the state in order to hold that license, that person may still refuse the search by a police officer. Again, the person may be held accountable for breaching that contract with the DMV by refusing the test, but cannot be held criminally accountable for exercising their 4th Amendment rights.

It seems inconceivable then, that a person on welfare could be held to a far less rigorous standard without the practice being considered highly biased and prejudicial. After all, a person on welfare is not even accused of any crime at all, nor is there any reasonable suspicion to believe that an individual receiving a government benefit is under the influence of a controlled substance.

Essentially, drug testing a welfare applicant would be the same as drug testing anyone who applies for a driver license, or even a permit to carry a concealed pistol as another example. Drug testing the welfare recipient monthly would be like requiring the same from any other person who has a government-issued permit. Allowing for random screenings would be the no more justified than randomly stopping and testing anyone who uses any government service even, like public transportation, walking down a public street, or getting the Federally protected mail from your mailbox.

So far, the Supreme Court has ruled that drug testing of welfare recipients is indeed a violation of the 4th Amendment. With this ruling pertaining to suspected drunk drivers, it seems as though that standard is still being held, at lest for the time-being.

For more reasons other than the 4th Amendment of why drug testing should not be allowed, read:

Why Drug Testing of Welfare Recipients Is a Bad Idea

Federal Law Makes Every Single Person In America a Drug Felon

Dimethyltryptamine, or DMT is a Schedule I drug according to the Federal government and the DEA.

Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence. -SOURCE

Because of this classification, anyone reading this article is felon. You are not only in possession of DMT, but also a user, and a manufacturer of it. You see, DMT is a naturally ocurring chemical in the brains of humans, animals, and elsewhere in nature as well. Which also makes you a distributor of Schedule I drugs if you give away free kittens, or sell your lawn clippings to your neighbor for landfill.

Check out a more in-depth article from Natural News.

Also check out our article Everything Is Illegal.




Tweet

Boston Crime Lab Scandal Could Put 34k Felons Back On Streets

The Massachusetts legal system is reeling in the wake of a 27-count indictment against one of their leading laboratory technicians. 35-year-old drug lab worker Annie Dookhan has been accused of tampering with evidence and obstruction of justice.

The full impact of her alleged crimes may never be known, and cannot be overstated. In this day and age of scientific law-enforcement, with so much of the public convinced that laboratory work is the "holy grail" in any criminal prosecution, the integrity of those labs is the pinnacle of public trust; the very bedrock of how we have come to even define justice itself, in so many cases, in the modern era. Popular television shows reinforce this idea that laboratory evidence is irrefutable and absolute. Prosecutors are want to nurture this sentiment among jurors.

Of course, any reasonable person might consider that even in science there are errors from time to time. With DNA evidence for example, we sometimes hear the "odds" of accuracy. Sometimes as accurate as one in a hundred-thousand. Sometimes though, huge odds are defied as in the case of lab analyst Kathryn Troyer, who discovered a near-match defying 1-in-113 billion odds between two felons in the same state.

Accuracy of DNA "Matches" to Definitively Identify Suspects Questioned

What happens though, when we throw in a more human element to the science? Something that undermines even the very best science. Personally, I never really thought too much about it, but always sort of assumed that the relationships between lab staff and the legal system were kept sterile, to a large degree. I assumed that some measures were in place to ensure lab workers were not only ethically impartial, but also that systems of anonymity and lab-controls were in place to reinforce the ethical standard. I even assumed that lab work was double-checked. In other words, I foolishly believed in the system and never thought that something like this could happen. I certainly never thought I would ever see a case of this nature, of such magnitude.

Annie Dookhan began her career at the state's Jamaica Plains drug lab in 2003. In that time, she has handled evidence in more than 34,000 cases. Any convictions stemming from evidence she processed are now likely to be overturned. Worse, this has called into question the integrity of the entire lab, and countless more cases. The lab has since been shut down and numerous people have been fired or resigned, but not before the damage was done.

In June of 2011 she was caught improperly removing drugs from evidence storage in 60 different cases, but apparently her supervisors did nothing to stop her from being involved in more drug cases after that. Later that year she wrote in a private email to Norfolk Assistant ­District Attorney George ­Papachristos, “I have full access to anything and everything, one of the advantages, so some of the other chemists are resentful of me.”

The long and often quite personal email exchanges with Papachristos have been closely scrutinized and seen by many as unethical from both a professional and personal standpoint. Dookhan's marriage has been on the rocks since her husband uncovered emails back in 2009. The prosecutor has not been charged with any crime himself though, and it is not known if the flirtatious banner ever led to more than a handful of personal meetings. Nonetheless, it does show a much closer relationship than one might expect between a prosecutor, and a lab technician who is expected to be impartial. So much so, that Papachristos resigned from the DA's office.

Clearly, from her own words, impartiality was never even something she considered. She did not see her job as being a technician who processes evidence, but rather her stated goal was “getting [drug dealers] off the streets.” It should go without saying here, that this was certainly not her job as a lab technician. Nevertheless she was all too happy to do favors for prosecutors, while shunning defense attorneys even when she was required to give evidence to them. She saw herself as part of the prosecution team, as did many prosecutors themselves, with one declaring "No no no!!! I need you!!!" when Dookhan said she would not be able to testify in a case.

Dookhan is alleged to have lied on the witness stand in court about having a Master's degree in chemistry, and shot out emails giving herself grandiose job titles she simply did not have. In correspondence with various agencies she identified herself  with self-appointed titles like "special agent of operations” or "on-call terrorism supervisor." She even went so far as to create fake email conversations with a US attorney, who's name she misspelled, and forwarded to other recipients.

Assuming of course that all of these allegations are true, one has to wonder how such an obviously pathological liar could go on for so long without anyone bothering to consider that something like this might happen. Police and prosecutors were clearly willing to look the other way and even cultivate a close relationship with Dookhan, to encourage her, in order to secure easy convictions. As of yet, there are no criminal charges against anyone else aside from the lab-tech herself, but it seems clear that ethical and moral obligations were tossed aside in favor of making their jobs easier.

As a result, hundred of millions of dollars have been wasted. Entire careers have been built to be little more than sandcastles. And tens of thousands convicted felons are now poised to flood the streets of Massachusetts, then out across the country. If it was their intent to actually make the public safe, then the government certainly failed miserably in that mandate. Not only because of the threat posed by these potentially dangerous criminals being set loose upon society, but because of the threat posed by the government itself.

It may be all-too-easy to assume that all or even most of these convicts were actually guilty, but that simply does not hold up to the facts, and certainly carries no weight against the core values of our entire justice system. In the face of reasonable doubt, the presumption of innocence is paramount. Without these standards, we might just go ahead and just give the police a license to kill at will and close down the courts.

Understanding this, we must assume now that the government sent more than 34,000 innocent people to prison on the word of just one deluded lab technician. That my friends, is more dangerous than any drug dealer. Even if only in our hearts we assume that just some of these convicts were actually innocent, imagine for a moment that one of them happened to be you, your spouse, your parent or child. Imagine for a moment how many lives have been irreparably laid to waste by the lies of just one woman, and a government who did not care. A government that in fact has a vested interest in securing more convictions even if they are not justified. A government that encouraged this woman to commit her crimes against the people. A government that presumes guilt of anyone who crosses into their sights, and has even dispatched agents to threaten the hundreds of inmates who have already been exonerated.

"We tell them, 'Listen, we know what you were doing before and we're watching you.'" -Boston Police Commissioner, Edward Davis

Perhaps the most frightening aspect to all of this is that this can only be the tip of the iceberg. This woman was so clearly delusional and so easily cultivated this relationship with prosecutors, it begs the question how prevalent this sort of thing is throughout the country. Especially in labs and agencies where this sort of thing is likely done more discreetly. If there are no practical standards in place to prevent something like this from happening, how could we possibly trust that this sort of thing is not rampant? How many lab workers compromise cases for monetary gain, for romantic favors, for promotions, or to simply stroke their own ego? How many might even quietly carry on the work of a zealot in their own private war against people they see as evil? Are we supposed to ignorantly believe that this is simply an isolated incident, one bad apple, and assume that it would never happen again? Are we honestly supposed to believe that some fear of the law will prevent lab-techs from committing these sorts of crimes, when the government itself benefits from these crimes?

If convicted, will Annie Dookhan be sentenced to as much time in prison as the innocent people she put there would have done?


Here are two media stories on the case:

Indicted drug analyst Annie Dookhan’s e-mails reveal her close personal ties to prosecutors

Crime Lab Scandal Leaves Mass. Legal System In Turmoil


Also see these articles and videos:

Mexican drug lord asserts he was working for US government

Obama's Drug War

Afghan Opium Farming Flourishes Under US Protection

Man Shot Dead By Police Home Invaders

Cops Give Free Drugs To Teens For Training

Cocaine Cop Gets 3 1/2 Years

Cops Munch Pot Brownies








Tweet