Woman arrested for DUI without drinking a drop

Real DUI offenders (like Vito Fossella) should be punished.

But what if somebody gets arrested for drunken driving without even drinking a drop of alcohol? That would really bip, wouldn't it?

It happened recently in Mesa, Arizona. A 29-year-old woman who was driving home from a party was stopped by police, handcuffed, and booked for driving under the influence. Her pickup truck was searched and instantly impounded.

But her blood-alcohol level was precisely zero. She was the designated driver and had consumed no alcohol that evening.

How does a perfectly sober motorist get charged with DUI?

I think it's another case that shows that nowadays the authorities consider a person guilty even after being proven innocent. There's so little accountability for the system that the center of power in America has moved in the system's favor more so than at any other time in recent history.

A writer for the Phoenix New Times speculated that the arrest could have been retaliation for the fact that the woman's husband is an attorney who represents DUI defendants. If the arrest was retaliatory, that makes the system even more out of control than it appears.

But it's also been speculated that the woman looked younger than 29, so police assumed she was a minor and was out past curfew. That the cops would jump to such a conclusion and make an arrest based on this is also a sign of an out-of-control system.

About Arizona law: If you refuse a DUI blood test, your driver's license gets confiscated on the spot. But a field sobriety test is different. In that state, a motorist may refuse a field sobriety test. You cannot be arrested for refusing it. But the woman was arrested anyway.

We know this much: The woman was charged with DUI despite later proving she had nothing to drink. The charges weren't dismissed for another month. That's a problem.

Like I said, I think real drunken drivers should be prosecuted, convicted, and penalized. But it's not fair to keep a legal battle alive for a month against someone who's already been shown to be innocent.

How can we trust the system to ever be fair when it doesn't even follow the law itself?

(Source: http://phoenixnewtimes.com/2008-05-29/news/heather-squires-was-arrested-for-dui-without-drinking-a-drop-of-alcohol)