I Love Yew, Texas
Okay, so a guy who had his fourth DWI conviction says the DWI laws in Texas are discriminatory because the discriminate against … yeah, alcoholics.
Ralph Alfred Friesenhahn argued that the state’s driving limit of 0.08 blood-alcohol concentration ignores the higher tolerances that frequent drinkers have to the effects of liquor, allowing the “protected class of alcoholics” to be prosecuted without having to prove that they had lost control of their mental or physical abilities.
Friesenhahn was arrested after a single-car rollover accident along a rural Comal County road south of New Braunfels. Blood tests later indicated that he had an alcohol concentration of 0.29 — more than 3½ times the legal limit.
Honey, when you’re triple drunk, it’s probably best not to act all cute. You need to shuddup and learn to walk a line while poopfaced.
Shockingly, even in Texas the courts said nope. You cannot drink and drive in Texas because somebody might get hurt. You can, however, drink and carry a gun. A big gun if you want to. So, there’s always that.
If you’re driving that drunk, stick the gun in your mouth (while parked, that is…)
1Don’t they have drive-thru cocktail lounges in Texas?
2They used to have some drive-thru liquor stores here in Maryland, but I think they outlawed them. Now we just have drive-thru Dunkin Donuts & Baskin-Robbins combos. Not sure if trying to drive while getting around a donut sundae is a whole lot safer.
3“Occifer, I’m not as drunk as some thinkle peep I am.”
But I was in college then.
4At a trial I was at several years ago, a state trooper testifying about a defendant’s blood alcohol level said “He had enough in him to kill him and make him drunk again.”
5.29? Meh. Louie Gohmert can do that level of st00pid without a drop of alcohol.
6How about toddlers? They don’t get drunk but they shoot more people in the USA than terrorists. Hmm.
7Best DUI stop ever with Tracy Ullman and Julie Kavner:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64mlGnEEAF8
8Here in Minnesota they stopped filming DWI tests at the station house after the BAC level came down to .10 (it is now .08 under federal mandate.) I had clients well up into the .20’s who looked perfect on film.
9Oh my…
Old drunks learn to compensate for their impaired abilities. They sometimes speak slower, for example. They spread their feet further apart or take smaller steps to disguise their stagger. Then they reward your perseverance by blowing 31 (ie 0.31 BAC) on the Breathalyzer instrument.
As an officer you observe the plume of alcoholic stench that accompanies their passing, as well as the occasional giant wet spot centered on the crotch. Occasionally a distinctive fecal odor accompanies the preceding.
Slurred or incoherent speech is language of this group. Along with questions like, “Is Tuesday before or after November?” Another prisoner from another department, while awaiting being booked into the County Jail answered the inevitable “Whatcherinfer?” question with “I was arrested in one of those old drunk cars.”
Another fell asleep in the jail elevator on the way from ground level to the 6th floor of the courthouse jail. When the elevator jerked stopping, he awoke screaming “Earthquake! Earthquake!”
Ralph Alfred Friesenhahn, you were impaired and a child of three would have noticed.
10I don’t drink alcohol and I couldn’t pass a field sobriety test to save myself.
11We live in a parallel universe where the people currently in power have set standards of evidence, logic, reasoning, and truth that are…ridiculous? ludicrous? repugnant?
12So I imagine that we’re going to see a lot of folks like Ralph trying to pull this kinda crap. Why not? Compared to Devin Nunes, this guy is Clarence Darrow. Come to think of it, he oughta go back in front of the judge and demand a Do-over. Citing Nunes’ official wordery as precedent, Ralph should simply state for the record that his ability to walk a straight line on a road spinnin as fast as that one was, beats any damn breath test ever made. And he’ll be happy to start drivin sober just as soon as Johnny Law stops pullin him over for drivin slightly relaxed.
That oughta do it.
Great link Frank. Thanks.
13Lless my record is a client with 27 priors!
14Well, that was one of the most interesting unique explanations of drunk driving ever. As entertaining as it was, he missed the point. Drunk drivers kill innocent people more often than they injure themselves.
15Was once tailed by a drunk driver one night on my way home. It was not a good experience. He kept driving into culverts alongside the road and invariably he would hit the steel rim of a culvert pipe and blow a tire. He finally came to a halt when the tires wouldn’t roll. When a tire hits a steel rim at a certain speed it sounds like hell a popping! He couldn’t understand why people were mad at him and why someone called the cops. Testified against him in court. Never saw him again. Good enough!
16This happened in Winston-Salem Sunday. http://www.journalnow.com/news/crime/toddler-critically-injured-in-sunday-s-ambulance-crash-has-died/article_09070368-c72a-5dae-b3a9-1c8abcbcf337.html
A sad story all around. The name of the driver will inflame the xenophobes.
174 DWI convictions-why is he still loose and driving?
18Someone needs to send him to Sweden.