What I Do at Sobriety Checkpoints

Most developed countries have some form of search and seizure law that governs the manner in which law enforcement may shakedown citizens. In the United States, the Fourth Amendment enshrines the concept that the people shall be free from unreasonable searches although we are occasionally subjected to sobriety checkpoints. How is this not an unreasonable search?

It's at this point that I must invoke a disclaimer. In many states it is illegal for a layperson like me to dispense legal advice. Lawyers made it that way so only they can bill you for sound legal advice like,

"This is not a good shirt to wear to court."

Since I'm not a barrister, I am not in any way advising you as to what you should do at a sobriety checkpoint. I’m simply chronicling what I do when stopped.

Now, sobriety checkpoints have been deemed constitutional by the Supreme Court if the police can prove that their activity removes a measureable amount of drunks off the road. This is the "public safety exclusion” which is commonly used by legislators to circumvent our actual constitutional rights. Stop and frisk was a blatant violation of the the Fourth Amendment which was promoted through a concern for public safety. It was largely used in big cities to racially profile the public. Another good example is limiting the speech of high school students for the safety of the student body. While this may sound like a prudent practice in reality curtailing speech is usually done to maintain order rather than peace.

The police are required to keep track of metrics proving that a checkpoint is effective. If they fail to collect favorable data, they're not allowed to set up an inspection point at that location again. The courts have determined that a reasonable search may not exceed a specified period of time, typically ten minutes. Now, this all can be used in your favor when coupled with one other brilliant piece of legislation, the Fifth Amendment.



 

Most of us think that the Fifth Amendment is invoked only by guilty people when they don't want to answer a question in court because if they do, the jury will stop listening to testimony about "blue-black fibers" and hair evidence that is "consistent with the victim" and just mentally bide their time until the sentencing phase. But there is more to the Fifth Amendment than what you've learned from watching a full season of Law and Order.

The Fifth Amendment states that you don’t have to help the police collect evidence against you. Essentially, you 're not required to answer any questions posed by cops. When behind the wheel, you got to pony up your driver's license and registration and in some states proof of insurance, but you don’t have to answer any questions. The founding fathers screwed up royally when it came to slavery, but they were spot on with the Fifth Amendment. You can’t just stay mum, though. The Supreme Court determined that you have to specifically invoke your Fifth Amendment rights, and if you answer a question after doing so, you just uninvoked your rights. So now you got all the tools to safely navigate a sobriety checkpoint.

Here’s how it goes...

As you approach the checkpoint, begin recording a video. Be sure to catch the clock on the dash the moment they stop your vehicle. That starts the ten minutes for a reasonable search. If smokey doesn’t waive you off, slowly drive up then drop your window about a half inch, roughly the thickness of a Dog Bone. If the police officer instructs you to lower your window, inform him that you can hear him just fine. You want to keep the window mostly closed as to make it difficult for the long arm of the law to claim that they smelled alcohol. When asked if you’ve been drinking, say loudly,

“I respectfully invoke my Fifth Amendment right under the Constitution not to answer any of your questions.”

It helps at this point if you can sing a few verses of the National Anthem. I never remember all the words so I just hum a few bars. The cop will likely ask,

“Oh, are you a lawyer?”

Now remember if you answer, you will uninvoke your Fifth Amendment rights. I usually just stare at the cop with a Nick Sandman smile. Some of my friends opt for the expression of the kid in the background to the right of Sandman, but that will make the police uneasy as you will look like you're about to become unglued. Smiling alone usually angers the fuzz so they’ll probably tell you to "pull over to secondary." Keep in mind that once ten minutes are up, you could fire up a bong or snort a line of a controlled substance off the dashboard, and none of it would be admissible in court. Make sure you tell the cops how long they have in secondary to screw with you before their time is up. The longer they fuck with you, the worse their metrics for the site will be.

After pulling over, they may call in a drug sniffing dog. If they do, I put a dog biscuit in my glove box that I slip out the window. When Dinkles the Drug Sniffing dog finds the tasty snack, he'll forget all his training and start chowing down. This will cast doubt on the results, which means your lawyer will not have to prove that the cop, administering the test, once used the n-word thirty years ago. Now, I know fiddling in the glove box might get you capped, but the look on the officer's face when his highly trained, drug sniffing canine starts munching on a moldy, bargain brand biscuit is worth the risk. Sometimes I lace the biscuit with Colon Blow so Dinkles will develop the Nutella squirts inside the cruiser. Sniff that.

Keep the video going because a lot of handlers bate the drug dog into false alerts by pointing and directing the animal in order to create probable cause to search your car as well as your body cavities. If the canine alerts, then you’ll likely have to get out of the car and your underwear. At this point I usually tell the cops that I have to urinate "wicked bad" so they won’t put me in a squad car. Once your vehicle is impounded, then you know you're going for a ride downtown. Unlike a ride in an ambulance, your insurance won't get charged for a trip in a police car.

If one of your more stupid friends dropped some ganga in the ashtray, you’ll need an actual lawyer. Don’t try to explain your way out of it because your lawyer will be real pissed if you do. Just pray they don't tackle you en mass while one of them yells,

"Stop resisting!"

After they pull the taser tongs from your pancreas, you’ll be booked at the station. Next, you'll need to find a comfortable place in the holding cell, preferable with your back up against the wall. Don't be fooled by the term "booked." There won't be any reading material in jail, and they'll take your cellphone "for you're own protection." The four toughest guys will be occupying the choice corners. Keep a distance from these dudes. If you’re not a MMA cage fighter or Delta Force hand-to-hand combat instructor, then it helps to ward away your cellmates by shitting your pants and acting crazy. This will likely allow you to survive until the morning when you'll be released after paying about $300 in fines.

Hopefully you’ll get waved through the next sobriety checkpoint, but if you don’t just follow these simple easy tips to ensure that you are fully immersed in the legal system for the next four years.

Good luck!

Editor's Note: Originally posted on February 20, 2018.

Prime Suspect

Back in 1990 I was living in a rented house in the inner city with two dude bro roommates, Doug and Jim. Doug was tall and played beach volleyball. Jim was short and wrote software. My height was coincidently the average of my two roommates. One Friday night I was meeting Jim at a favorite watering hole. I had just enough time to work out at the gym, shower then drive to the bar. It would be close so I had to hurry. Little did I know that the events of this night would unfold in such a way that I would be accused of a crime I just couldn't have committed.

I knocked out my gym routine in record time, bolted into the locker room then prepped for the shower. As I headed for the communal pen that men shower in at gyms I looked back at my locker which was open with my pants hanging and my wallet in the back pocket clearly visible. The city I lived in hosted its share of criminal activity. Still yet, I was in a hurry so I decided to just leave my locker open even though the gym provided a means to secure it.

I chose a shower to the far corner. There was no one in the communal shower area so it didn't really matter where I went. Oddly a guy entered and chose the shower to my right on the adjacent wall. I thought this was odd and a bit of an intrusion. Let me explain a piece of unwritten bathroom etiquette to women who are collectively cursed with the inability to urinate standing up.

Upright Urinals

Presented with this choice to express your bladder one takes the urinal furthest away from the middle unless someone is already pumping the bilge. In such a case you take the urinal furthest from the one already in use. The same goes for showers. You never shower next to another dude unless there are no other showers available. The guy who came into the cooperative shower chose one on the adjacent wall facing me, that is, the shower closest to mine. He also elected to stand under his shower with his back to the wall which means his jambalaya was staring right at me. By now your probably thinking that I'm a paranoid nutjob. Maybe I am, but I was buck naked in public with a nude stranger watching me while he attempted to bust off a number three in the shower.

I decided to fleetingly glance out of my peripheral vision to see what the guy next to me was doing. I wish I hadn't done that. Let's just say no one's equipment is that dirty. The minute he saw me look his way he took a step forward with his crank in his hand, bent over and put his free hand on the soap dispenser under my shower head. That was well inside my personal space. In fact my brain went into a class five proximity alert causing me to have the most intense flee response of my life. I snapped off the water then got the fuck out of there.

I rushed out of the locker room dismayed that my personal space was so overtly invaded. Throwing on my clothes I bolted from the gym. As I approached my car a rock landed nearby. I spotted some kids in an apartment complex overlooking the gym hurling rocks into the lot. Could this night get any worse? I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. Another rock landed very close to my car. After reporting the rock incident to the police I jumped in my car and sped off for the apartment complex bent on catching the hooligans. Unsuccessful I returned to the lot to find a police car parked haphazardly at the front of the building. As I approached the cruiser I noticed the officer behind the wheel was in plain clothes. I told him about the rock throwing incident. Oddly he never asked me my name. I assumed he knew I was the guy who called in the incident.

At the bar I recalled the story for my roommate and surrounding clientele. When it came time to pay the tab I pulled out my wallet to discover all my money was gone. That was just great. Someone stole all my cash. I immediately took the blame. After all I did leave my wallet accessible and in full view. It was a hard lesson. One I had coming.

The following Monday at the gym I noticed several signs posted throughout the facility that read,

"If you lost money at the gym on Friday night contact Detective Dan at (phone number)."

My volleyball roommate, Doug, went to the same gym. I ran into him there and asked about the signs. He encouraged me to report my loss.

"But it was my fault. I left my locker open."

"Yeah, but something happened Friday night. You better report it," Doug urged.

I found the owner's wife, a young woman who recently married the much older guy who started the gym. She was unusually cold. She was that way normally so I didn't take it personally. She reminded me of the attractive women in high school. You know, the ones that treated everyone like shit.

"Well, if you did lose money then you should call Detective Dan," She said smugly.

Instead of apologizing for a customer being ripped off in her establishment she scoffed at my inquiry as if I was bothering her or something. So I called Detective Dan from my desk at work on Tuesday morning.

"Hello, my name is Robert, and I got ripped off on Friday night at the gym."

"Oh really!" Detective Dan exclaimed.

"Someone stole $96 from my wallet."

"Oh really."

"Yeah."

"Well, why didn't you report it on Friday?" Detective Dan asked.

"Because it was my fault," I answered.

"How's that?" Detective Dan asked.

"I left my locker open with my wallet in plain sight," I offered.

"Oh really. Well, why did some people see you running out of the shower?" Detective Dan quizzed.

Great. Now I had to explain my uncomfortable men's room experience.

"Because some guy in the shower was working over his junk right next to me."

"Oh really. Some people saw you racing out of the parking lot."

"That's because some kids were throwing rocks at the cars in the lot."

"Oh really. Well, you're the only gym attendee who didn't report a theft on Friday night. How do you explain that?"

"What was I going to report? I left my wallet out, and someone stole all my money. I was taking responsibility for my own stupidity."

"You still should've reported it."

"I'm reporting it now."

"Maybe that's because you're our prime suspect."

"What! Me?'

"Yeah you!"

"Well, Detective Dan, you need to talk to the plain clothes cop I spoke to on Friday night."

"That was me," Detective Dan informed.

"Well, that was me talking to you."

"That was you?"

"Yeah, I called the cops on the kids throwing rocks."

"Oh. Good thing you called."

"How so?"

"We were going to pick you up for questioning?"

"Pick me up? For what?"

"I told you. You were the only one who didn't report a theft on Friday night."

"That's because I was taking responsibility for my own lapse in judgment."

"Who does that anymore?"

So it turned out that the theft was an inside job pulled off by an employee with a master key on a night that I just happened to leave my locker open with my wallet visible then was subjected to a dude yanking his crank in the shower and some kids throwing rocks at my car. You know, a typical night.

And that's how I became the prime suspect for the theft of my own money.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on April 6, 2017.