Criminal Law Blog
February 20, 2006
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram published a story about whether the practice by the Dalworthington Gardens Police Department ("DGPD") of taking blood samples from DWI suspects would lead to a wave of more lawsuits. It said that predictions of more lawsuits have so far proved incorrect.
DGPD routinely takes blood at DWI stops and has a large number of officers certified to draw blood.
DGPD’s practice is this: once a suspected DWI driver is pulled over, the officer asks him to submit to having blood drawn for alcohol level testing. About half of the suspects decline. For those suspects, the DGPD officer goes and gets a warrant. The DGPD chief said that they have not had to forcibly take any blood.
Here is the thing: some police officers, if they get their buttons pushed by a suspect, will get more than a little rough with him.
Let’s assume that the conversation between the officer (not of DGPD) and suspect begins this way:
Officer: you smell like alcohol, have you been drinking?
Driver: No, I haven’t been drinking. I only smell like beer because some idiot spilled a beer on me. Have you been drinking, or are you just congenitally stupid?
Officer: Step out of the car, sir.
Driver: Why? Why should I? Just write me your little ticket so you can make your little quota, and let me go on about my business. Why aren’t you out catching murderers and rapists?
Officer: [getting irritated] Get out of the car, sir.
Driver: No. Not until you first explain to me what your probable cause was for this stop and how big a percentage you draw on fines paid by innocent drivers who gave in to police harrassment and just paid their tickets.
Officer: [getting agitated, has his hand ready to draw his stun gun] Get out. Now.
By now you probably have the drift of where this is headed. The officer then pulls the suspect out of the car, through the open driver’s side window. The driver’s face is then pressed firmly on the trunk of his own car, but he continues to express his thoughts perhaps a bit more articulately than is good for him. He flails away at the officer by kicking, even after he is handcuffed.
Let’s also assume that the officer is trained to draw blood. If the officer uses good judgment, he will call another officer to come do the blood draw.
But if everyone always used good judgment, there would be no work for civil lawyers. And the good Lord knows we have plenty of civil lawyers.
So, instead, let’s assume that the angry cop, now muttering profanities, gets the suspect to the jail, gets the suspect’s arm out, and—whoops!—misses the vein.
And misses again. And again. And again. Finally another officer or nurse thinks this looks like something from Abu Ghraib, takes over, and hits the vein on the first try.
And it turns out that the suspect was stone cold sober. Someone really did spill a beer on him. Welcome to lawsuit city.
Whether there are as many lawsuits as predicted is not the only question. Another question is what amount of money does the police department pay after they are sued?
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