A Day In Court

The last two best policemen.


Warning! The following is an emotion-driven and at times, a slightly irrational rant of a father who believes his son was treated unfairly.

As I have gotten older I find my support for the legal system in general and the police in particular waning. We are taught from our first day in school that the police are our friends and that an accused is presumed innocent until judged to be guilty in a court of law. It ain't always so.

Your typical policeman is a hard-working and honest man or woman doing the best they can in a difficult job. Typically he or she has been selected for training as a police officer because he or she possesses a certain skill set and mindset that suits policework. Then they are molded to the police way, the presumption of innocence is replaced by the suspicion of guilt and they are immersed in a culture where it is them against the world. When dealing with the police you are guilty until you prove you are not. I will come back to this point in a minute.

Son Sneed and I had to attend a hearing today to determine whether or not his driver's license should be revoked for the high crime of not being able to urinate upon command. The hearing had nothing whatever to do with his pending DUI case. It was necessitated by the decision of a lone officer to suspend Son Sneed's license, simply because that was the easy way out for him.

The sad sacks who legislate our state came up with the notion that refusing to take a urine test as a part of a DUI investigation, is in and of itself, grounds for license revocation. It is obvious what the intent is and the idea is sound. Who wants drunk drivers beating the rap simply by refusing to be tested? Not me, and I am guessing not my fellow citizens.

Unfortunately, like all powers vested in the police, this one has been abused by some of our more overzealous officers. They have expanded the definition of refused to include couldn't, simply because the law says "doesn't complete" in addition to "refused". In the world of the police, which has no shades of gray when it comes to the public, you either peed or you didn't.

It is interesting to me that the police routinely get a court order to take blood when a suspect refuses a urine test. In Son Sneed's situation, the officer was just too lazy to even accept a blood test, when it was offered. Our police will cheerfully tell you that they don't have to take blood if they don't feel like doing so. That is the criterion, their feelings about the matter.

The hearing today was stacked against Son Sneed in a way that made it impossible for him to raise a defense. He and I had gathered what evidence we could. He takes a particular drug, Risperdal, that has the common side effect of making urination difficult. We brought that literature and his prescription records. We innocently thought that his honest testimony, his willingness to take a blood test and the literature about side effects of Risperdal, would win the day.

The hearing began with the judge instructing me that I was not to speak during the course of the hearing. I could sit beside Son Sneed, as moral support, but that was to be the extent of my involvement. That meant that it would be the testimony of a professional witness, the cop, against a mentally ill guy who was scared out of his mind. Seems fair to me.

Of course he could have hired an attorney to accompany him, but he didn't have the $2500 that it would cost. The state won't provide legal help to indigent or disabled defendants in civil matters. State of Arizona and the police of Our Fair City versus a mentally ill guy who was scared out of his mind. Again, a fair match.

The cop gave his testimony first. He went over the facts of the case. Young Sneed and I agree that he shouldn't have been driving, given that he hadn't slept for three days, but that was not the issue at hand today. The cop said that he took Son Sneed to the police station after he passed the Breathalyzer because his physical condition was consistent with inebriation, yet he wasn't drunk. He had concluded that the boy was on some mind-altering substance and he was determined to prove it. He began with the answer in mind.

The cop offered into evidence some written tests he had administered. He testified that he instructed Son Sneed to write the even numbers from two to twenty, the complete alphabet, the date and year, to sign his name and then print his name, all on a single sheet of paper. He told Son Sneed that once he began writing, he couldn't repeat the instructions. He testified that Son Sneed made a mistake on one number and had to write over that number with the correct one. He added that Son Sneed forgot to print his name on the bottom of the page. The cop said this was an indication of impairment. Ever meet a mentally ill person who was confused? In the field of assessment this is known as a horse shit test. A technical term.

Mr. Policeman readily admitted that once at the station, he grew tired of waiting for Son Sneed to pee in the cup and decided to marked him down as a refusal. The judged asked if Son Sneed actually refused and the cop said no. Then it was Son Sneed's turn to testify.

Son Sneed told the judge that he didn't refuse, but couldn't go. He said that he asked for a blood test and offered to stay at the police station until he could pee, but that the cop refused both offers. Son Sneed told the judge that he went to the hospital following his release and had to be catheterized in order to urinate. The judge told him that what happened after he left the police station was immaterial. It seems that in order for the catheterization to be material to the case, the emergency room staff would have had to come to the police station to do it.

Son Sneed tried to explain the side effects of Risperdal, the drug that has the effect of inhibiting urination. The judge said that without expert testimony he would not accept it as evidence. Evidently, we should have gotten his doctor to appear in support of Son Sneed. I am not sure he would agree to do so since he fired Son Sneed as a patient while he was in the hospital a couple of weeks ago, citing liability concerns. Nice guy.

Son Sneed tried to explain that the hospital would not release his records nor cooperate in any way with him in establishing his case. They claim that there is a federal law that allows them to withhold the records of mental patients. The judge made it clear that he didn't believe that. I blurted something out, trying to be supportive and he told me to be quiet.

In the end, Son Sneed was left with the inescapable conclusion that he is doomed, or at least his driver's license is. The cop could have saved him this turmoil by listening to him and showing a little compassion. Instead he chose to be a hard ass.

The judge told Son Sneed that if the ruling goes against him, he can appeal to Superior Court. That takes money he doesn't have, so he is throwing in the towel should the worse happen. The life of a mentally ill person is very difficult and the system does little to ease the difficulty.

If I seem a tad bitter, it is because I am. The mentally ill have very few people advocating for them and a bunch of people making matters worse, the police included.

So, the next time I get a call to support the Fraternal Order of Police or the Police Widows and Orphans, I'll have to say no thanks. That is unless they appear in my living room and pee into a cup upon command. Then I might kick in a buck or two.






Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky


Tag: Daily Life
Personal Finance
Humor