Fair DUI flyer claims to help avoid checkpoint inspections
FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fighting for your rights or welcoming legal trouble? An attorney says he's showing drivers how to avoid being falsely arrested at DUI checkpoints.
The idea is to stay in your car, with the windows up, and not talking to police, while showing the Fair DUI flyer. Police say it will not get you out of a checkpoint inspection. The flyer's designer says he doesn't want you to roll your window down for an officer. He claims far too often drivers make mistakes that get them falsely arrested.
Chances are we've all driven up to DUI checkpoints and waited, anxiously even, to talk with officers. Police say they're the perfect educational tool and deterrent for drunk driving. But many hate the idea, saying it runs right over their rights.
"The challenge is how do you assert your rights without screwing it up," said defense attorney Warren Redlich. He designed the Fair DUI flyer that says "I remain silent. No searches. I want my lawyer."
Redlich says it's a better way to assert your rights without challenging police. "It was originally meant more for the activists who were doing these checkpoint videos and I wanted them to stop doing stupid stuff and stop offending the police," he said.
New video on YouTube.com shows drivers using his method outside of California with police waving them through the checkpoint. Those drivers show the card, their ID's and registration through the window.
Critics say this is offering an easy out for an impaired driver. "If you're drunk, this is probably not going to work," Redlich said. "And my advice to anybody, by the way, is don't drive after a single drink. Even one drink can get you in trouble."
Fresno Police Sgt. Richard Tucker says it's simply not legal. State law, he tells Action News, gives officers the right to examine those documents and the driver.
It's happened before, if a driver doesn't cooperate Tucker says they will be arrested.
"If those individuals have that kind of energy, they should focus their energy at the state legislature and change the law at how they allow checkpoints and whether they allow them," Sgt. Tucker said. "But today they are allowed and you're required to submit to an inspection at a checkpoint."
ABC 30 legal analyst Tony Capozzi says the Fair DUI method is not worth the fight and legal problems that will follow. "It's a safety concern," he said. "They're not interested in the person being prosecuted. What the courts are interested in, what the police are interested in is getting people off the streets who may be driving under the influence, who may be impaired somehow. And what it does is protect the public and the safety of those on the streets."
The flyer method has not yet been challenged in court, but other similar attempts so far have failed.
Redlich and police want to remind everyone that they can be given a DUI even if they're under that well-known limit of .08.
