Fort Worth Police- The Needle and the Damage Done

The Fort Worth Police, along with the Tarrant County District Attorney have brought the Metroplex to a new low for civil liberties.

For the MADD/fascism crowd here is your hero,

The idea for the ‘no refusal’ holiday actually came from senior prosecutor Lloyd
Whelchel of the Tarrant County District Attorney’s Office. Whelchel recently
attended a training seminar and reminded officials that authorities in El Paso
and Harris County had similar programs in place.

It is embarrassing that tax dollars are spent sending prosecutors on vacation to learn how to further erode civil liberties. Lloyd’s junket resulted in this new low for liberty in Texas.

At least 18 motorists suspected of driving while intoxicated were arrested Monday night and Tuesday morning during the Fort Worth Police Department’s “No Refusal” DWI campaign. Of that number, 10 drivers refused to provide a breath specimen, prompting police to obtain a search warrant and draw their blood to determine whether their blood-alcohol levels were above the legal limit of 0.08. At least one had to be restrained while his blood was taken, said Lt. Dean Sullivan, a police spokesman.

Texas is now forcibly restraining citizens to draw their blood. Citizens who are merely under suspicion of a crime and have injured no one. No law in Texas allows for these blood draws.

How did we get here? Judicial activism, creative prosecutors, and rubber stamp magistrates.

Texas Law- Implied Consent
Texas law is clear, barring an accident involving death or serious bodily injury, you can refuse to give a blood/breath specimen.

Texas has a popular and misguided law- implied consent. The idea being that you can lose your license if you did not give a breath sample upon request. The law is clear that driver’s have a right to refuse a sample.

The legislature then created a procedure that allowed for blood draws in for accidents resulting in seriously bodily injury. So if you were suspected of DWI that resulted in death or serious injury the police could draw blood. Barring that, you could still refuse to give a sample.

Prosecutors Work Around The Law
Mr. Welchel and his ilk could have lobbied the legislature for an expansion of the implied consent law. Instead, prosecutors have decided to make an Orwellian farce out of the criminal justice system and rely on a pro State appellate court for some needed judicial activism.

The idea behind this tragedy is that the blood in your body is evidence. The State merely needs a warrant to get this “evidence” for their DWI case.

To game the system prosecutors set up a friendly magistrate to sign the warrants on demand. Our pro-State Court of Appeals has declared this practice constitutional. Finally, this idea spreads at tax payer funded prosecutor conventions.

This is how freedom dies, with creative prosecutors gaming the system and a complacent Court of Appeals finding more exceptions to the Bill of Rights. The State of Texas has no right to invade the bodies of driver’s who have injured no one. I am embarassed that we are taking forced blood draws from suspects who are deprived not only of counsel, but of liberty.