On Monday the Texas Senate passed two bills related to drunken driving.
The first would mandate statewide sobriety checkpoints; the second
would allow police officers to draw blood from DWI suspects. The
other sexually oriented newspaper in town focused on the sobriety checkpoints and mentioned
that the blood draws would be related to serious accidents involving
injury. That's not the whole story.
In fact, the second bill includes
an amendment crafted by the Dallas Country District Attorney's Office that
would allow Dallas police to draw blood from every single person
arrested for a DWI. You're always welcome to read more about the "no-refusal" policy in this
week's paper version of Unfair Park.
Toward the end of the bill that passed on
Monday, there is a clause that expands who is eligible to issue a blood
search warrant. Right now, a judge has to sign a search warrant to
demand blood from a suspect.
Most DWI arrests occur after midnight on
the weekends. So a judge who has agreed to be on hand to sign the
warrants must wait at his or her home by the fax machine all night. Magistrates, on the other hand, are on staff in the jail 24-7. Prior
law has forbidden them for issuing evidentiary search warrants. The new bill would allow them to do so in the case of blood draws relating
to DWI arrests. This is all that stands in the way of the blood draw
program going full-time in Dallas.
It's unclear whether this
bill will pass in the House. After all, although about half of the
people pulled over for DWI refuse to willingly give over a breath or
blood sample, 100 percent of the state's elected officials refuse to
take the tests, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
