How Juries are Being Misled to Convict in DUI Cases

You see it on T.V. court case dramas, the prosecutor wraps up his case and points an accusatory finger at the defendant, the victim’s family sits crying in the pews.  Then the defense attorney marches up to the jury box and goes all the facts of the case and points how each fact doesn’t prove the prosecutor’s case.

However, in a DUI case none of this happens.  The prosecutor does point a finger at the defendant, and the defense attorney comes up after him, but neither one goes over facts in the case.  The prosecutor instead say “His B.A.C. was 0.10 ladies and gentlemen,” and sits down.  Wait, what?  That’s the incontrovertible proof?  He had alcohol in his blood and all of a sudden that rendered him a blithering idiot by proxy?

There is no presentation of facts.  There is no weaving of the tale of the night of September 19.  There is no story of a dark road through the woods.  There is nothing about an argument with the wife of the defendant earlier that evening.  Nothing!

In fact, in DUI criminal cases, hardly anything is proven at all.  To make matters worse, the police do absolutely no investigation if they find any evidence of alcohol at the scene.  They completely shut down, once they see alcohol.  And by “evidence of alcohol”, it can be so obtuse as to be bottles of packaged alcohol, still in the case, in the trunk of the car.  How about that for not proving a case?

The juries are then being mislead into thinking that since there is B.A.C. it must prove the case.  The prosecutor need only present a lab technician and thus convicts the defendant.

It proves nothing.  We opperate under a constitution and a body of case law.  When and why did we start not applying that to DUI cases?  Money!  They want to present a fast quick case, with no proof, so they can get paid to throw the person in jail.  As mentioned before, jail is big money.  HUGE money!  It doesn’t matter that it was your grandma, she’s gotta go to jail.

And, if the prosecutor and judge and defense lawyer are all in on the act, then the more the merrier.  Laws are now rewritten to take judging these cases out of the hands of the judge.  Instead of revoking the prosecutor’s non-proof of the case, the judge has to sit there and agree.  Instead of having some discretion over the sentencing of the defendant, the judge, more often than not, is mandated to sentence him to jail.

This only applies to DUI cases.  Even if there is no victim.  And, if you think it’s about some notion of being heavy handed to send a message, it’s not.  It is about money, pure and simple.

Any prosecutor that rests upon B.A.C. as incontrovertible proof of his case is stomping all over the very constitution that he swore an oath to defend.  Obviously he is bought and paid for.  Any judge that would allow this charade in his court is overseeing a kangaroo court of the highest circus degree, and is also stomping on the very constitution he swore an oath to uphold.  Shame on both of them.