DUI Defender

Recently Chief Justice Roberts fired off an opinion against most of his fellow Justices for not agreeing to review a case from Virginia regarding a DUI stop from an anonymous caller.  The Virginia case was simple; someone called 911 anonymously to report an alleged drunk driver.  Officers responded and found a vehicle matching the caller’s description.  The officers followed the vehicle and despite no bad driving to substantiate the anonymous call, stopped the vehicle.  The Virginia Supreme Court found this to be an unreasonable action in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution but the State asked the United States Supreme Court to review the decision.  The majority of Justices declined leading to Justice Roberts’ outburst.

What Roberts does not seem to grasp is that the Supreme Court has routinely held that standing alone an anonymous tip of illegal activity is not sufficient to accost a citizen UNLESS the illegal activity can be confirmed.  In Florida v. J.L. the Court stated that a 911 call of an armed man on a street corner which was not confirmed by law enforcement was not sufficient evidence to seize and search the person.  The fact that a car is involved is of little import.

Putting aside precedence, let us look at common experience and human nature.  If the police were allowed to stop someone every time they receive an anonymous complaint with no requirement to confirm the facts, jealous wives, husbands, girlfriends and boyfriends would light up police switchboards throughout the country for personal gain.  Neighbors who have issues would report “I think they have drugs” to harass each other.  It would be ridiculous.

The principle of requiring articulable suspicion based on observed facts BEFORE allowing the police to seize a person is a fundamental precept of our free society.  Our founding fathers did not want the government to be able to  stop people based on mere allegations of illegal activities since THAT EXACT ACTION had been used by the British against them.  Houses were entered, people were seized and arrests were made by the British agents merely because someone was ‘alleged’ to be a patriot.
Now, in an effort to combat the “scourge of DUI” Mr. Justice Roberts wants the government to have that same power.  The power of government agents to stop anyone, anywhere, anytime, based merely on an anonymous complaint is not just the beginning of totalitarianism, but the end.  It would allow one officer to ‘anonymously call’ 911 to then allow another officer to make the seizure.

One further point that needs to be made.  The constant use of statistics to show the ‘need’ to violate the Constitution in DUI cases is completely fabricated.  First, a “dui fatality” as defined by the Department of Transportation includes if the deceased was under the influence but sitting at a bus stop and struck by an errant driver.  IN OTHER WORDS the statistics are NOT of accidents caused by drunk drivers, but of ANY accident in which a person died in ANY circumstance so long as that person had been drinking.

Second, the common flu, not the H1N1, kills three times the number of people that the government’s inflated statistics on DUI reports.  Perhaps Judge Roberts would like the government to break down the doors of the infirmed who allegedly did not get a flu shot, since they kill way more people than do possible drunk drivers, upon the anonymous tip of “I heard some sniffing”.

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