In the 1952 western film classic High Noon, there is a scene where hero and sheriff Will Kane, played by Gary Cooper, is asked why he simply doesn’t arrest three hooligans who are waiting around for their leader to begin wreaking havoc – which includes bushwhacking Kane. He replies that he can’t, because the trio hasn’t done anything.
Fifty years later, in the 2002 science-fiction film Minority Report, the police try to stop crimes before they begin, using parapsychology to predict the future. The police arrest (and imprison) perpetrators before they actually commit their dastardly deeds. Of course, it might have made more sense if they simply acted to prevent the crimes, but that’s not relevant here. The salient point is that the future-police arrest people before they actually do anything.
In the real world, year 2005, we apparently live somewhere between these two fictional circumstances. A few weeks ago the Washington Post reported that D.C. police are routinely arresting people for drunken driving, despite the fact that their breathalyzer tests score below the widely-accepted legal alcohol limit of .08%. Those arrested hadn’t done anything, yet they were cuffed and hauled away, simply because a policeman thought they might do something.
It turns out the legal limit in D.C. is a preposterous .01%! Thus, a single glass of wine with dinner renders its citizens subject to the humiliation and aggression described in the Post’s story, which includes being handcuffed, searched, arrested, put in a jail cell for several hours, then being charged with driving under the influence of alcohol.
Putting aside the idiocy of a .01% alcohol limit – I suspect even a rinsing with Listerine would produce a trip to the station house for the driver – the question that needs to be asked is (even if the test scored above the .08% limit) – what have such drivers actually done? The answer, of course, is that they have done nothing.
Sure, drunken drivers might crash into other cars or innocent pedestrians, but they haven’t done it yet. So how can they be arrested for doing nothing? All they have done is violate a law, the reasonableness of which is open to question. With apologies to the likes of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, how can drunken driving itself be a crime? No one has been injured, no property damaged. How can it be a crime simply to drive badly (i.e., impaired) according to the state’s definition?
The purpose of this law, as is the purpose of so many of the state’s nitpicking, micro-managing edicts, is obviously to prevent (what it believes are) negative events before they happen. In this instance, the negative outcome is an automobile accident; the underlying crime is “reckless endangerment.” In its infinite wisdom, our nanny state has decided that our society wishes to keep potentially dangerous drivers off our roadways.
Perhaps this is a good thing – I know I don’t want drunken idiots cruising around all over the place, drivers who’ll crash into me and say “Oops, sorry, guess I had too much to drink; it was just an accident.” For one thing, that is not an accident – it is deliberate self-impairment, and the offender is absolutely responsible for whatever havoc he wreaks. For another, there are plenty of dangerous, non-drunken idiots on our highways to go around (like the dolts two feet from your rear bumper at 75 mph) – so we don’t need drunkards, too.
In all seriousness, this seems to raise some important questions. While common sense tells us that drunken driving is not to be condoned, should .01%, .08% or even .18% drivers who are stopped for a missing taillight be subject to DUI arrest if they haven’t exhibited signs of “bad driving”? How does this type of bad driving differ from that of the tailgaters noted above, which never results in arrest? If the drivers haven’t caused any damage to property or persons, how is this different from a Minority Report or Stalin-esque “legal system,” where the state attempts to stop undesirable events before they happen?
Seems to me that either you can arrest someone before he does something, or you can’t. If you buy into the former case, then what are the limits?
November 3, 2005
Andrew S. Fischer has worked in various fields.
