Doesn’t Pass The Smell Test, Either

• Driving about 12 miles over the limit

• Improper lane changes or erratic driving

• Driver blew .14% on the officer’s portable breathalyzer

• Passenger blew .16% on the portable breathalyzer

• Late in the evening/early in the morning

• Maryland’s limit is .08%

Support for the ‘right procedures’ being followed is premised on the fact that the supervising arresting officer is an officer with numerous DUI/DWI arrests and a family tragedy caused by a drunken driver. The unspoken assumption is that he would not permit any impaired driver to continue behind the wheel, and would in fact, arrest any driver meeting the test of impairment. It would certainly be interesting to see how many folks he hauls in for a .14%, and how many he plays ‘catch and release’ with if they register a .14%. My bet is that John Q. Public generally ends up in the creel and not back in the stream.

On the night in question, the supervising officer was providing training supervision to a new officer; she apparently worked through the stop process under his supervision.

As layers of the onion have continued to peel, more information has surfaced. To wit:

• Mr. Atkins was permitted to call a friend to drive him home. No word as to how long the officers hung around to ensure that the friend arrangement was complied with, while stopping their patrol activities.

• Radio logs and tapes of the arrest might be an eye-opener, if they exist/existed.

• Apparently to be a ‘real’ DUI arrest in OC, folks have to be escorted downtown to HQ where they can blow into an EBT (evidentiary breath tester). It’s a highly accurate scientific instrument that is stationary; it will test for the alcohol in the breath, as well as print out a report of the findings that will hold up in court.

• The portable model used by the arresting officers generally doesn’t provide a printout (it’s an option), which is needed for court evidence. Several different technologies can be used; each is accurate as long as proper calibration routines are followed by trained and certified personnel. The results for either the portable or stationary model should have been nearly identical, if the tests were administered back to back.

• If Mr. Atkins had stopped drinking before getting behind the wheel, his test results might have gone down with the passage of time between the traffic stop and a visit to HQ, but probably not enough to clear him.

• If Mr. Atkins had continued drinking after getting behind the wheel, his test results might have gone up with the passage of time between the traffic stop and a visit to HQ due to the additional alcohol being absorbed by his body.

• All of the ritual is really designed to provide a solid case before the defense lawyers begin to hurl objections.

The best technologies are of no use if the arresting officer substitutes his subjective judgment as an override to the available objective technology. That is what happened here. An officer with a laudatory record either made a bad call, or was instructed to make a bad call, in failing to have Mr. Atkins go downtown and use the more sophisticated testing device. Mr. Atkins was almost double the level required for legal impairment. It really was a no-brainer, except for his Delaware legislative credential.

It’s nice to know that OC is sufficiently progressive to extend Diplomatic Immunity to out of state revelers. I guess its one way to fight the migration of disposable income to the Delaware slots. And I’m sure underage college students will be scrambling to acquire a bogus DE legislative credential so they can get served. But is it really progress?

Chief Del Pino needs to ensure that OC has a policy that treats peasants and nobility alike, 24/7. We don’t have confidence that she has that policy in place currently.

Full Disclosure: I lost two great customers some years back when a drunken executive ran down a family crossing the street one Sunday morning to enter church. The mother had a long recovery; grandma and grandson were killed on the spot. Didn’t happen locally.