aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Driving laws and the presumption of innocence

A Virginia judge is ruling that the state’s DUI statutes violate the 5th Amendment:

A Fairfax County judge who believes Virginia’s drunken driving laws are unconstitutional has begun dismissing cases, including five DWI cases in a week, and has threatened to throw a veteran prosecutor in jail for arguing with him.

Judge Ian M. O’Flaherty made it known in July that he felt Virginia’s DWI law unfairly deprived defendants of the presumption of innocence if breath tests showed that they had a blood alcohol content of .08 or higher, levels at which people are presumed to be intoxicated.

James makes exactly the right point:

O’Flaherty makes an interesting argument. All traffic laws essentially operate this way, though. If one gets a speeding ticket, for example, it is merely a case of a government employee, operating under pressure of meeting revenue quotas, charging that the defendant did it. The burden of proof is on the defendant to demonstrate that he is not guilty.

This should be fought but the rich don’t care and the poor can’t do anything about it.