Posted On: October 17, 2005, 12:59 pm CDT

Posted By: Chris

I've read this article several times, and I fail to see where you are coming from in regard to how corruption and money somehow affected the judge's decision in this case. Ditto for vagueness of the statute (which I will agree is a problem in a lot of legislation passed, but not for the reasons that you cite).

There is money and lobbying involved, but you are looking at the wrong tree to bark at. Maybe you've forgotten where these "presumption of drunkenness" laws came from; MADD, the political, excuse me, victims' rights lobbying group that spreads lots of campaign dollars and threats. And, let's remember that the various states have passed these laws mostly because Congress passed a law that says that any state that didn't pass such a law would lose its highway funding. Again, another MADD project.

The presumption of drunkenness statutes are anything but vague, and that isn't the issue here. I hate to say it, because I don't like drunk drivers either, but it sounds like the judge is on firm constitutional grounds in his reasoning. If the .08 were a rebuttable presumption, instead of an irrefutable presumption, maybe this would fly. But, by making it irrefutable, the law does remove the defendant's right to present evidence in his defense; it does eliminate the need for the government to prove facts beyond a reasonable doubt before taking property (fines) and liberty (jail time). That does appear to make the law in conflict with our U.S. Constitution, and with the court case referred to.

I always hate to hear the slippery slope argument, but what happens when the next lobbying group makes the next mere presence of a single element of an otherwise legal act an irrefutable presumption of guilt of a crime that may not actually have happened? Like, say, being arrested for owning a handgun even though you haven't shot anyone with it, because that lobbying group, with all good intentions of stopping handgun crime, goes a bit overboard.

Then what?