Can Police Force Drunken Driving Suspects To Take Blood Test?

Oh, I know. But I would then hunt the cop and his entire bloodline like a feral cat hunts a mouse.

Laz, for many years I've read your comments and most always appreciated the sense and the sentiments.

But not on this thread.

Yep, in Indiana they don't mess around. If you refuse the breathalyzer you get an automatic 1 year suspension of license, which I don't think can be reduced.

The wife of the Colts owner tried this approach and lost. You're better off just taking your lumps, pleading guilty to DUI and losing the license for 3-6 months, which is bad enough.

And as far as fighting the DUI in court? Good luck with that. They charge you with 2 things. IIRC, one is impairment, the other is the violation of the alcohol statute, so that if they don't get you on one, they'll get you on the other.

They do this so that people can't try and discredit the breathalyzer, and skate on a lesser charge.

Thank you. I hope the officer got fired. Good for you not letting him get away with it. Hope you got your money back. Of course you don’t get compensated for the time it cost you but at least it makes the police think twice before falsely accusing people.

“And as far as fighting the DUI in court? Good luck with that. They charge you with 2 things. IIRC, one is impairment, the other is the violation of the alcohol statute, so that if they don’t get you on one, they’ll get you on the other.”

You are correct; one is based upon “impairment,” for which the BAC test result can be “prima facie” evidence of impairment. The other charge is to simply have that much alcohol on your breath. It’s not based on blood, but breath, and there is a statutory presumption that whatever you tested is what you were when you were driving, so long as the test is done within 3 hours.

As you might guess, I am an attorney; I spent 18 years as a prosecutor and now do defense work. As a practical matter, all the jury cares about is the number. They want to hear what the test was. If you think about it, it’s what they’ve been conditioned to accept based on news stories. Whenever you hear anyone being arrested for DUI, the first thing everyone looks for is that number. If I recall correctly, Nancy Irsay blew a .17.

I've actually met Nancy Irsay and she's a wee little thing. It wouldn't take much for her to get to 0.17.

I was living in Indy at the time and it was a big stink, because she had access to the big-time lawyers and could pay for the best defense.

She still lost.

Imagine losing your license for a whole year.

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