As an attorney, I don’t spend much time in criminal or traffic court, but the court in which I spend most of my time has become the center of a media event.
You can check out the whole story here, but basically what has happened is that a Fairfax County General District Court Judge has declared Virginia’s DUI statute to be unconstitutional because it creates a presumption that a driver is intoxicated if they have a breathalyzer result about .08 and then places the burden on the defense to prove that the accused was not intoxicated. The ruling is based on a 20 year old U.S. Supreme Court decision which deals with the obligation of the state to prove all elements of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
Since I don’t practice criminal law, I don’t know if this decision is correct or not. What has intereted me, though, is the reaction to this Judge’s ruling. Several commentators on radio have said that, while they believe the ruling may be correct on the law, the ruling is wrong because it allows drunk drivers to go free.
This attitude demonstrates a complete misunderstanding of Constitutional Law specifically, and the law in general. The Constitution says what it says for a reason. If the state cannot meet its burden in a particular case and someone who may have actually done wrong goes free, then the fault lies not in the decision maker but in the people who wrote the law and carried it out.
On a personal note, I will just say that I know this Judge well. He would not make a ruling of this kind unless he was truly convinced the argument was correct. Whether others will follow his ruling remains to be seen.
