This would be insufficient for a conviction in my jurisdiction (and should be elsewhere too.) You have to put the driver behind the wheel of the car while it is being operated or has been operated. All kinds of reasonable doubt could be created with a guy standing outside of the car with the keys, even if the hood is warm - assuming the guy hasn’t confessed.
If said witness put that suspect behind the wheel and testified to such in court, then it could stand.
The main thing here is that probable cause is frequently a far cry from beyond a reasonable doubt.
Short of that, if other places allowed convictions without putting the person behind the wheel beyond a reasonable doubt, that is scary law and scary practice in my opinion.
Oh, I agree that there is all kinds of reasonable doubt.
I think though that the post giving the case which characterized the situation as a guy sitting innocently by his car in a parking lot with keys in his pocket and waiting for a cab is unlikely to have been the actual entire situation.
If this were the entire situation, then he’d have little to worry about as just about any lawyer could get a jury to acquit him (assuming he could afford a lawyer, but I think even a court appointed lawyer would have no problems with such a case either).
I’ve noted though that when people are telling you about the time they got arrested, they tend to leave things out.
My money would be with either the guy blabbed about driving, or someone reported his car to the cops.
I think though that the post giving the case which characterized the situation as a guy sitting innocently by his car in a parking lot with keys in his pocket and waiting for a cab is unlikely to have been the actual entire situation.
That’s why I kept probing him and asking him lots of questions, I was in disbelief and knew I must be missing something. He just kept smiling sarcastically and telling me no, it’s as ridiculous as it sounds. I did not specifically ask about the hood being warm though. Based on the information he had already given me, I already knew that he had only been in the one bar that evening until close, then was waiting for his ride outside. When the police arrived, he was honest with them, told them he had learned his lesson from his first DUI and was waiting for a friend. He was informed by police that if you are within so many feet of your vehicle, in possession of the keys, it was a violation of the law. I think it was 50 feet or some stupid, arbitrary number like that.
I’ve noted though that when people are telling you about the time they got arrested, they tend to leave things out.
He may have. There’s no way to know for certain, but I did ask him lots of questions and felt satisfied that the answer was simply the government overstepping its bounds, yet again. Maybe not though. I like to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt, but when it comes to drinking and driving in Colorado, they seem to be pretty insane.
I’ve noted though that when people are telling you about the time they got arrested, they tend to leave things out.
I tend to agree that this is the case in my experience as well. I investigate complaints on officers from time to time and more than a few such complaints are demonstrated to be exaggerated, sometimes grossly so, with significant elements of their behavior omitted.
[K-Mac] He was informed by police that if you are within so many feet of your vehicle, in possession of the keys, it was a violation of the law. I think it was 50 feet or some stupid, arbitrary number like that.
Any law that would allow for the prosecution of a person for being intoxicated with keys in close proximity to a vehicle is scary in my book.
I’m really curious to know more. At the next neighborhood watch meeting, I’ll ask the officer and see if I can get the facts, then post them here.
Thanks. Typically they should already have a law for that anyway… Drunk in Public / Public Intoxication… something to that affect, assuming they are in a “public place”. That they want to tie it to the potential that a person might possibly think about driving sounds like some reasoning to increase the fines/jail time.
A friend told me a similar story. He was in a bar in Virginia, realized he was too drunk to drive home so he decided to sleep it off in his car. A few hours later a cop pulled into the parking lot and rousted him. He admitted to being drunk, and the cop told him he was going to cite him for DWI. Friend told the cop he didn’t have his keys. Cop didn’t believe him, frisked him, searched the car, and no keys. So cop left him there to sleep it off. Next morning friend retrieved his keys from a bush around the corner and drove home. He knew the law and it saved him a night in jail.
As far as I know, the law is real, at least it was in Virginia years ago.
As far as I know, the law is real, at least it was in Virginia years ago.
The bare minimum for a DUI conviction would be if the person was observed in the driver’s seat, keys in the ignition, car on or off doesn’t matter, and he’s intoxicated. If he had his keys in his pocket he would have been fine also. My jurisdiction is in Virginia. I’m not sure which cop he dealt with, but if he had charged him with less than that he should not have gotten a conviction. I’ll look into the case law to see if this has changed recently, but I do not believe it has.