 Jeff Baker shows us a classic DUI arrest
“This is not a good day for law enforcement in Georgia," said Ken Vance, Council Director of the Georgia Police Officers and Training Council. Yes, I agree. When the police chief of Cobb County GA is arrested for DUI, among other things, it is a bad day for law enforcement in general.
If you don’t know the details of the story, there are many places where you can find the facts. But what I like to do when some BIG gets arrested for DUI in Georgia is to break down the charges and educate my readers about what the driver did wrong (or right) under the circumstances, and what the police did wrong or right, so that we all can learn a few lessons.
Action 1: Baker refused field sobriety tests
Does this help or hurt his case? Field sobriety tests in Georgia merely help an officer to make a decision to arrest or not arrest someone. They are not scientific and cannot be used in court to prove someone was intoxicated, just that the officer had reason to arrest the person. Since you don't have to take them, a driver should ask the officer if they are voluntary, and then refuse to take them. Tell the officer you're not volunteering any information. This may help his case.
Action 2: Baker refused to submit to a Breath test
Does this help or hurt his case? Asking someone to take a breath test happens only after the person has been arrested. Under all other crime arrests, police read a Miranda warning before asking someone to give incriminating (hurtful, prejudicial) evidence. Miranda is never required when an officer asks someone to take a breath test in Georgia. Since he was already on his way to jail for the night, he was smart to refuse the test. If he blew over the limit and the results were used to convict him of DUI, he would have been looking at jail for up to a year.
As it stands, he took a blood test at the jail, and blood test results are considered much more reliable than breath. But even blood test results can be challenged.
Refusing the breath test may help his case because there are no breath results to challenge.
Action 3: When asked to get out of his car, he put his car (actually, his police vehicle!) into reverse and drove around the officer
Does this help or hurt his case. Not only does it hurt his case, it added several more charges to his already considerable list. If he hadn’t been seen driving (as opposed to snoozing in his car at an intersection) he probably wouldn’t have been charged with Failure to Maintain Lanes or Too Fast for Conditions. No, these aren’t major offenses, but the fewer charges the better.
Action 4: Keeping empties in his car
Does this help or hurt his case? This always hurts. The arresting officer found 8 Natural Light beer cans with a bit of beer still in them within easy access of the driver’s seat. Now, there is really no way of knowing if the beers were from that night or anther night, but it doesn’t really matter since Georgia law prohibits open alcohol containers in cars. If he had been sober when he was pulled and open beer cans found, he still would have been charged with DUI.
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