Why Should People Actually Be Drunk To Arrest Them For DUI?
Utah officer didn't seem to care whether people were actually impaired -- arresting even teetotallers for drunk driving. Dan Frosch writes in The New York Times that a lawsuit filed claims she falsified drunk driving arrests:
According to the suit, filed Dec. 14 in District Court in Salt Lake County, Ms. Steed made a career of pulling over drivers who she claimed were driving drunk or under the influence.There was only one problem. Some of the drivers Ms. Steed arrested had not been drinking, or at least not enough to be reasonably impaired, according to the lawsuit, brought by a group of Utah lawyers on behalf of two plaintiffs.
In several cases, those who were arrested did not drink alcohol, said Robert Sykes, one of the lawyers who filed the complaint, which names Ms. Steed and the Highway Patrol as defendants.
"We were all separately getting calls about Lisa Steed from people saying: 'I was pulled over. I wasn't doing anything wrong. She told me I smelled like alcohol, but I hadn't been drinking,' " Mr. Sykes said.
"They would pass the sobriety test with flying colors. But Steed would say they were still impaired and arrest them."
Mr. Sykes and the other lawyers involved in the case said that they have spoken with more than 40 people who also claimed they were falsely arrested by Ms. Steed. It was part of a pattern the officer engaged in to burnish her reputation with superiors, the lawyers said.
In all of the cases, according to the lawyers, the charges were dropped or reduced, but not before drivers paid bail, car impound or court-related fees that typically exceeded $1,000.
Ms. Steed is in the process of appealing her firing. Her lawyer, Greg Skordas, while not commenting on specific arrests, said that the allegations were overblown and that the overwhelming majority of her arrests had stood up in court.
"She has made thousands of stops and thousands of arrests. She's had a handful of cases that could really be counted on one hand that have not been supported by evidence," he said.
One wrongfully arrest is three too many -- especially if you're that wrongfully arrested person.
via @MissAmiaSays
Sure, so many people at this blog complain about government inefficiency, but let one woman try a creative an innovative solution to revenue generation, and NOOOOOOOOO is all I hear.
She was fired? She needs to serve some time, and the whole department needs to be investigated to find out how rampant this was.
jerry at January 5, 2013 11:59 PM
The ironic part is the idiot woman tried this in a state with a high portion of people who don't drink aka Mormons. I am amazed this did not got caught earlier.
John Paulson at January 6, 2013 2:42 AM
Depends on the county, but I was thinkin the same thing, John.
$20 bucks says if they take a closer look st religious affiliation the might find another correlation
lujlp at January 6, 2013 5:13 AM
I've known more than one person that has been dragged in while sober because of long-term physical disabilities that won't them walk a straight line.
But this is just corruption of the legal system by a bad cop.
Jim P. at January 6, 2013 5:42 AM
"Thousands of arrests"?
Divide by duty days. There's a smell here.
Radwaste at January 6, 2013 6:13 AM
She was getting commendations for making, like, 200% more DUI arrests than her colleagues. And no one smelled shit....
Frank at January 6, 2013 7:23 AM
Sadly, no one smelled shit Frank because they were all busy smelling the money she was bringing in.
Kind of like Bernie Madoff - someone, somwhere, had to know what he was up to; but the money was too good to say anything.
Charles at January 6, 2013 1:29 PM
Sadly, no one smelled shit Frank because they were all busy smelling the money she was bringing in.
Besides, they knew if they looked too closely at her bogus arrests they might have ended up with a male officer being the most effective.
Obviously unacceptable.
dee nile at January 6, 2013 2:45 PM
I ran across a traffic court judge who was like that. I learned years later, that you could compliment her scarf-du-jour and she'd let you off. Everyone else was screwed.
jefe at January 6, 2013 4:50 PM
Jim P. wrote:
'I've known more than one person that has been dragged in while sober because of long-term physical disabilities that won't them walk a straight line.'
More proof - as if any were needed - that you should politely but firmly refuse any and all 'field sobriety tests', of whatever sort. Many people do not realize that these tests are voluntary, you are under no legal compulsion to participate in them and there is no legal penalty for refusing.
'Field sobriety tests' are exactly the sort of subjective psuedo-science that allowed this trooper to get away with what she did for so long.
llater,
llamas
llamas at January 7, 2013 2:46 AM
"But this is just corruption of the legal system by a bad cop."
Not entirely. Most states allow a person to be charged with "driving while impaired" based solely on an officer's opinion. This is a sort of escape hatch to make up for the fact that we don't have field tests for commonly abused drugs, but it is wide-open portal for abuse. You can be convicted of "driving while impaired" based on a theory that you might have been using a drug (recreational or prescription), and the officer's testimony that you observed driving in an unusual manner (not necessarily breaking any traffic laws, just oddly). It's practically impossible to defend against that charge, and it carries the same penalties as driving under the influence of alcohol.
Cousin Dave at January 7, 2013 6:49 AM
I agree. Of all the states to pull this in, she had to choose a state that's 50 percent Mormon?
beth at January 8, 2013 5:10 AM
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