HIGH COURT'S DUI LAW RULING RIGHTS A WRONG

The Georgia Supreme Court this week overturned a state law used to help
convict drunk drivers that allowed accident investigators at the scene of
automobile accidents to ignore basic rights guaranteed under the Fourth
Amendment. The ruling, overturning the "implied consent" law, says police
must now have probable cause that alcohol or drugs were involved in the
collision before they can require drivers, involved in an accident with
injuries, to submit to blood or breath tests. The existing law had ignored
the probable cause test and punished drivers who refused to take the test
with loss of driving privileges for up to one year.

It's a good ruling that most legal experts agree will have little negative
impact on getting drunk and drug-impaired drivers off the highways. And
it's a gratifying personal rights development in light of the erosion of
many of those rights under the guise of the greater good that is occurring
at the federal level, most notably in some of the Patriot Act provisions.

Georgia's "implied consent" law allowing investigating officers to require
the sobriety tests - or have your refusal to do so used in court against
you - when there was no evidence of such causal impairment was a clear
violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, most
prosecutors and defendants' attorneys agreed. What is at issue is whether
those individual's rights against unreasonable searches without cause
should override the public safety concerns in obtaining convictions of
impaired drivers.

Most prosecutors agree that there will be little effect from the ruling in
their ability to deal with drunk driving cases, although a few Atlanta
prosecutors have expressed high concerns that DUI charges brought in some
high profile cases already in the court system may be thrown out because of
this ruling.

There is no special need to depart from the constitutionally guaranteed
probable cause test in injury cases. Police investigating an accident will
now have to document reasons for requiring the test, but the circumstances
of the crash, the behavior, smell and even physical evidence (such as
liquor or beer bottles) on the scene should provide ample cause for testing
those drivers who need it and eliminate the threat of punitive action
against those who don't but object to the assumption of guilt.