Minnesota, can now be charged for DUI in a car that doesn't start

[Darwin333]

What I saw him say what this is not the typical evidence that lets them infer it, butI did not see him say, and I don't think he should say, that they are iunable to infer that. It's just 'unusual' evidence.

There's plenty of reason to infer it. Not to a certainty - but there's that 'open container' logic again, where you can't prove the drive was drinking it, much less enough to get drunk, but it's still illegal.

That's because the tradeoffs of limiting your freedom taking the open bottle versus the public safety is heavily weightedfor safety, as it is here, which is why the status includes 'control of the car'.



This is a little tricky. It's one question to ask "is it proven beyond a reasonable doubt he drove drunk". It's another question to ask, is a drunk sleeping in a car without an affirmative defense at such high risk of having driven drunk, from the inferences of his being drunk in control of the vehicle, that the tradeoff of the freedom to get drunk and go sleep in your car versus the public safety from drunken driving, weighs so heavily for safety that it's justified to criminalize the act of getting drunk and then getting in control of a vehicle".

And fot the latter there are two issues - our opinions of what's right and the fact that the state did it.

What I was saying is that the inferences from his situation are so strong of his having driven drunk that the act of his choosing to get in his car drunk at home like that makes sense to criminalize for the need to reduce drunken driving - no one has yet offered any scenarios where this would happen, without evidence justifying it, as to why the freedom side is large and justified not crimiinalizing it.

That's what the legislature did, and there's no real doubt it seems to me that he broke the law of being drunk in control of the vehicle that apparently had been drivable to that point and he said was drivable.

It seems to me this is one of those stories where a fact is misrepresented to hype the story - 3 weeks later the car didn't start, for a dead battery for all we know, ]and the headline becomes 'man arrested for drunk driving in a car that won't run!' Very nice for getting lots of read reaction, ohmigosh isn't that outrageos, but sorry, the car not running doesn't seem to carry any weight.

The more I read the more I think this case is a bunch of bullshit.

Please define "control". I have the keys to my truck in my pocket, no other key to start it exists, so I assume that I am currently in control of my truck even though I am nowhere near it. What if I control the area the keys are in, such as my house? Does that mean I am in control of my vehicle as well since I still have access to the keys?

And you keep going back to this "safety" issue. I would really like to know what makes you think this would make you any safer? Current drunk driving laws have not prevented drunk drivers from repeatedly doing it but this law will? For the most part, laws do not prevent crime they simply punish offenders for committing the crime.

So you are trading freedom for nothing. Not a very good trade in my book, and consider again how often the state uses laws in ways they are not intended and how "easy" it is for the people to regain that freedom when people with good intentions give it away. Seriously, I can't think of any less of a reason to give up the slightest freedom than to protect us from sleeping people.

 

[exar333]

No. Same if you leave a drunk adult passenger.

Loophole!

Officer to man in passenger seat: Have you been drinking?
Man: Yes, but my DD ran away...
Officer: Where did he go?
Man: I don't know, but he didn't come back...

 

[Craig234]

Loophole!

Officer to man in passenger seat: Have you been drinking?
Man: Yes, but my DD ran away...
Officer: Where did he go?
Man: I don't know, but he didn't come back...

Hence the requirement for the story to check out