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by LabRat
Wed Feb 15, 2012 12:33 pm
Forum: Never Again!!
Topic: incident with Johnson County Sheriff
Replies: 138
Views: 24875

Re: incident with Johnson County Sheriff

I'm not a lawyer, so this is worth exactly what you paid for it.

"IMHO", I suspect that upon your admission that you had been drinking prior to the operation of your truck, coupled with the smell of ETOH on your breath, he had probable cause to suspect a crime was in progress.

IMO, that's all the justification he needed. He had already determined you were not intoxicated, but you had previously given him enough information to suggest that there was a high potential of a crime (open container) in progress

While I agree that being nice to the police is paramount, there is no requirement to aid a criminal investigation if you're the suspect.

The US 5th Amendment states "No person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself...", by admitting to the alcohol use, you did just that.
He already had smelled your breath, so its likely he could draw probable cause from that observation alone; but you firmed up his suspicion by your comment.

The 5th Amendment gets a bad rap, but it is (and was) intended to protect the common folk from inadvertently giving information (even truthful information) that can later be used against you in court.

If he was on shaky ground before your admission, it appears to me he got a firmer stance when you spoke. Noble? maybe......good for you? Probably not so much.

Just my opinion. Nice is one thing, conviction by your own admission is something else.

LabRat

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