DWI and Your Tax Dollars
Dallas DWI Lawyer Robert Guest “I donate to MADD”:
Not intentionally… MADD is stealing my tax dollars. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration gave MADD $400,000 of our money to "monitor drunken driving" proceedings in court.
This is wrong on many levels.
1. Watching court is free. Anyone can watch court. It costs nothing. Why they need $400k is beyond me.
2. MADD has an annual budget of $52,000,000. They don't need taxpayer money.
3. MADD already received over $700,000 from the Department of Justice. How much tax payer money do they need?
And, uh, I don’t know how else to say this, but… why would they need to ‘watch court’ in the first place? Smacks of intimidation tactics, doesn’t it?
‘Hey Judge, never mind the Constitution, due process, reasonable doubt, etc., we are a powerful lobby, and we donate.”
Or perhaps, if you’re feeling a little more cynical/sinister, ‘Don’t make us donate to your opponent in the next election!” (Anyone else having flashbacks to the Sopranos episode where one of Tony’s enforcers ‘bumped into’ a sitting juror in a corner store?)
Houston DWI Lawyer Mark Bennett follows up with the text of the New Mexico governor’s press release bragging about the use of state funds on this project, and adds:
What do you suppose "positive change" is going to mean to MADD's courtwatchers? More convictions, faster, and more punishment. After all, if your sole goal were "reduction of alcohol-related crashes," you could do away with due process, convict every person accused of DWI (regardless of the facts) and put them all in prison…
Like MADD, I'd like to reduce alcohol-related crashes. That's why I won't drive after having more than one drink. Unlike MADD, I don't think that reducing alcohol-related crashes is more important than due process or common sense.
Why would Mark say he won’t drive after one drink? Well, it is the safest thing to do certainly. After all, the law doesn’t say you are automatically not guilty of DWI even if you are below a .08 Breath Alcohol Concentration.
But I’m also guessing that HPD uses the same rule that Austin police do when making DWI arrests: A traffic violation and the odor of alcohol… arrest now, and sort it out later. You can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride. (Also, I suspect some officers think that while they may not have enough to convict, forcing the driver to hire a DWI lawyer is in itself punishment.)
As a defense attorney you can only watch so many video tapes of (some of) your clients performing very well on the Walk & Turn, One Leg Stand, and other field sobriety tests before you realize… the law doesn’t say Zero Tolerance for adults, driving and alcohol, but the police often make arrest decisions on that very basis.
I’m like Mark. I too am not “pro drunk driving”. And I have occasionally praised MADD for some of their marketing campaigns. But is this really an appropriate way to spend taxpayer money?
Read through and enter the discussion with the form at the end
