Florida Lawyer Helps Drivers Pass Through Sobriety Checkpoints
MIAMI (CBS Miami) - A Florida lawyer says he's found a legal loophole to get around police sobriety checks -- don't talk to the cops.
"What the checkpoints require is that you stop, and typically that you show the police your driver's license. You're doing that," Warren Redlich told CBS News. "What you're not doing is going beyond what is required in a checkpoint."
Redlich has gone so far as to print up flyers and post a video tutorial to YouTube advising people to keep the window rolled up, and hold their driver's licences and what he calls the Fair DUI Flyer up to the window.
He explained CBS News he was tired of defending people who he says were wrongfully arrested after going through police checkpoints.
"There are genuinely drunk drivers that need to be taken off the road, but unfortunately the way the system works, a lot of innocent people get caught up in it and the idea of this is to help people protect themselves by not rolling down their window and asserting their rights," said Redlich.
But not everyone agrees with his method.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving president Colleen Sheehey-Church warns the checkpoints are the key to preventing people from getting behind the wheel after drinking.
"Sobriety checkpoints are advertised so people know where they are," she told CBS News. "They are not there necessarily there to make arrests. They're there to deter people from driving drunk."
But Redlich says he is trying to help drivers protect their rights, not to help people get away with driving drunk.
"Drunk people are not good at following instructions, they're not good at remaining silent, and they're not good at being patient," he said. "And all those things are required to make this work. So if you're drunk, you're probably not going to pull it off."
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