The ride to the substation was uneventful. I watched my house recede into the distance as we passed it, and kept flipping-off the ride-along who thought it was polite to stare at a guy with his knees under his chin. I still have no idea where the substation is, I was “impaired” at the time. Being thrown into the back seat of a police cruiser will sober you up fast however, I discovered.
I wasn’t booked into custody with the fingerprinting and the mugshots, just told to take off my boots (it was during my “cowboy” period) and they put me in a concrete holding cell. The only thing that wasn’t concrete was the toilet in the back corner. I vowed to stay away from that completely. I sat down on the concrete bench. I waited. I freaked.
Some time passed. I was sitting there contemplating my circumstances, when the officer and his ride along showed up at the cell door, opened it and led me into a hallway. They went through the balancing and dexterity tests again, which are harder to do, by the way, in your stocking feet. But I still felt that I had passed them. I was then led to a room that looked a lot like a break room with a conference table, and told to sit down. The officer and the ride along sat across from me.
Officer: “Count from 1 -50 backwards.” Pen poised over a clipboard.
Me: “50-49-48-47-46-45-44….” This was easy. He stopped me at 35.
Officer: “Recite the alphabet.”
Kee-rist, was I in kindergarten? Was that how they treated “impaired” drivers, drivers operating “under the influence”? I start. “A, B, C, D”
“No, backwards,” he says.
Me: “Shit, I don’t think I can do that sober!” Dumb thing to say. I try, and I do pretty well I think. I have to pause every once in awhile to think, and he stops me on “h”.
Officer: “What color pants are you wearing? Tell me without looking.”
Me: Staring at the officer. “Stonewashed, black, Levi 501s, button fly.” Just like Garth Brooks, I think, but don’t say.
The officer does not seem impressed.
“Okay,” he says. “Step over here to the breathalyzer.” After setting it up, he hands me a straw-like thing and tells me to blow. I do. A receipt comes out the side. He looks at it. Puts it down.
“Do it again.”
I do. The receipt pops out; he looks at it and puts it down. I’m pretty sure I’m not going to give him two out of three.
After an uncomfortable pause, me standing there in my stocking feet, rocking from side to side and back and forth and wanting to sit down, “You didn’t test over the legal limit”, he says and he truly sounds disappointed. (At the time, the legal limit in Arizona was .10, it’s .08 now.) “You tested .093.” He shows me the “receipt.” I never see the other one, so I figure it must be lower. “So I have the option of charging you with Driving Under the Influence or not. I’m going to charge you. I also have the option of suspending your driver’s license.”
“What the hell did I do to make him so mad,” I’m thinking. Then I realize that he has to make an arrest because he brought me back to the substation alleging I was DUI, wasted two hours trying to impress a ride along with his tests, and now he had to make it into a legitimate stop and arrest. After all, remember, all I did was turn left on a red arrow as the light was changing, and admit that I’d had a couple of beers that evening. If he hadn’t left me in the cell for as long as he did he probably would have gotten that extra .007. I have been in custody, I note, for almost two and a half hours. It is 1:30 a.m. on the wall clock in the test room.
He hands me back my driver’s license. I guess he decides he’s punishing me enough.
The real truth is DUI can be prosecuted in Arizona (and most other states) either by showing that your driving ability was impaired only to the slightest degree as a result of the consumption of alcohol (or those other “influences”) or the “per se” law, which says you can’t drive a vehicle within two hours of having a blood alcohol level of .08 or greater. How they know what your blood alcohol level is two hours prior, I don’t know. You should know, that violating a per se law has absolutely nothing to with your ability to operate a vehicle safely, it’s all about blood chemistry. The only question becomes how high the blood alcohol level was at the time of driving. Since, as I pointed out, the breath or blood alcohol test is always given after the time of driving, it could be the same, higher, or lower than it was several hours ago when I was driving. Wow, the “Don’t Drink and Drive” signs are making a lot more sense now.
The officer asks me to sign his citation and I do, which of course is not admitting guilt, only agreeing to appear. I have the right to a jury trial, or I have the choice to waive a jury trial and have a judge hear the case, he explains. The arraignment is set two months away, and I’m able to drive until then because he has chosen not to suspend my license.
“Do you have a way to get home?” he asks. I’m taken aback by the complete opposite tone in his voice. He’s being nice. Why?
“Well, I don’t know where the hell I am, for one, and I don’t have a car, obviously.”
“We’ll take you home,” he says. “I have to get back on patrol in that area anyway.” So I get out of jail free, and I get a ride home.
There is absolutely no conversation on the way home. It takes about twenty minutes and he drives right up to my house without me giving him any direction whatever. That makes me a little uneasy, but I thank him for the lift and at 2:30 AM my arrest ordeal is over.
Coming soon.....The Trial.
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