I’ve written in the past about the growing practice of forcibly taking blood from a drunk driving suspect, sometimes done by a cop in the field. See, for example, Taking Blood by Force, Forced Blood Draws by Cops: Constitutional?, Forced Blood Draws by Cops Spreading, Blood Draws in the Back Seat by the Dashboard Light and Forced Blood Draws: Citizen Backlash?.
Here’s a new tactic: threaten the suspect with strapping him down and painfully jabbing a needle into him (however many times it takes to get a blood sample)…unless he agrees to "voluntarily" take a breath test.
Texas Blood Test Aims at Drunk Drivers
Wall Street Journal, Dec. 11 — Texans arrested for drunken driving should be prepared to give blood this holiday season.
Cities and counties across the state are increasingly demanding that drunken-driving suspects who refuse to take breathalyzer tests submit to blood tests that measure the amount of alcohol in their systems.
The blood-test policy—dubbed "no refusal" by law-enforcement officials, because it prevents drivers from refusing to provide evidence of intoxication—has grown from a novel procedure used in a few Texas jurisdictions to an initiative used by police statewide, particularly during weekends and holidays when drunken driving is most common. The no-refusal initiative has also caught on in other states, including Florida, Illinois, Louisiana and Missouri…
Texas courts have uniformly upheld the constitutionality of mandatory blood testing, attorneys said. But criminal-defense lawyers say such mandatory tests trample suspects’ rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. "It’s an erosion of civil liberties," said Austin defense lawyer Samuel Bassett. "If we can poke people involuntarily for evidence, where do we draw the line?"…
Police are empowered to strap a suspect to a chair, if necessary, to obtain a blood sample. That allows blood to be drawn quickly—a key benefit to prosecutors because blood-alcohol concentrations dissipate over time…
In El Paso, police find that the policy actually encourages people to submit to breath tests. "We give people the option of blowing into a tube or getting poked with a needle," said Lt. Rod Liston. "People increasingly are going with the less painful option."…
Hmmm…Threatening to "poke" a suspect with a needle actually "encourages" him to submit to a breath test? What a surprise! But I guess this wouldn’t be "torture" using the Attorney General’s definition requiring organ failure.
So: "Submit to a breath test…or we’ll strap you into a chair and jam needles into you." Welcome to the War on Terrorism…I mean, Drunk Driving.
