Driving under the influence

[Dr Jekyll]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/24/ca...

Presumably more to the story, but odd nevertheless.

[Mike335i]

Odd, curious to see how this plans out and what the prosecution argues.

[Red Devil]

Only in America.
Even less surprised to find it is in California...

[XCP]

Too much caffeine can cause some pretty strange effects.

[agtlaw]

Article – "Sharon Henry, chief deputy district attorney for Solano County, said in a statement that her office was 'conducting further investigation in this matter. The charge of driving under the influence is not based upon the presence of caffeine in his system.'"

[Sheepshanks]

agtlaw said:

Article – "Sharon Henry, chief deputy district attorney for Solano County, said in a statement that her office was 'conducting further investigation in this matter. The charge of driving under the influence is not based upon the presence of caffeine in his system.'"

Yet two labs say he was negative for everything else they tested for.


I'm always bemused by how many law enforcement agencies there are in the US:
".... he was pulled over by an agent from the California department of alcoholic beverage control, who was driving an unmarked vehicle."

[Ms R.Saucy]

Sheepshanks said:

Yet two labs say he was negative for everything else they tested for.


I'm always bemused by how many law enforcement agencies there are in the US:
".... he was pulled over by an agent from the California department of alcoholic beverage control, who was driving an unmarked vehicle."

it's more that enforcement officials from various organisations are sworn as Police Officers /Peace Officers ...

where the UK tends not to invest enforcement personnel from none police agencies with stopping powers / PPE / blues and twos and has also swept up a lot of the 'little' Police agencies into the main forces when the police ofrces were tidied up in the 60s and 70s

LA taxi licensing / EHOs/ HSE enforcement / Water Bailiffs etc in the UK would likely be Peace Officers with badge/ gun / neenaws in the US ...

[Aretnap]

Sheepshanks said:

agtlaw said:

Article – "Sharon Henry, chief deputy district attorney for Solano County, said in a statement that her office was 'conducting further investigation in this matter. The charge of driving under the influence is not based upon the presence of caffeine in his system.'"

Yet two labs say he was negative for everything else they tested for.

At a wild guess the prosecution will argue that based on his driving/behaviour/responsiveness/general demeanour he was clearly off his head on *something* - they just don't know exactly what. The fact that he tested negative for about eight drugs doesn't prove very much - there are a lot more than eight drugs which can impair driving, especially in an era of legal highs which may be one step ahead of the testing labs.

I have no idea whether they'd succeed in that line of argument - I don't know what proof of intoxication California law would require for a start - but it's not an intrinsically absurd one to make. It sounds like caffeine is a red herring - the deputy DA implies that they'd still be running the prosecution has the tests found nothing at all.

[agtlaw]

Aretnap said:

At a wild guess the prosecution will argue that based on his driving/behaviour/responsiveness/general demeanour ...

Failed sobriety test?