Despite negative blood and breath tests, man arrested for DWI (BTW, he's black)
AUSTIN--To Austin attorney Daniel Betts, driving while intoxicated can sometimes be what he calls “an opinion crime.” Law enforcement must decide, sometimes within only a matter of minutes, whether a person is intoxicated and should go to jail -- or be allowed to simply drive way.
On the night Austin police arrested his client, they made the wrong choice, he says – his opinion bolstered by a voluntary breath and blood test showing Larry Davis wasn’t intoxicated when he was arrested Jan. 1, 2013. He tested 0.00 on a Breathalyzer – the lowest possible reading -- and the blood test, which took months to be tested, came back negative.
“My reaction was just shock that it happened,” Betts said of the arrest, after watching a police dash cam video and reviewing the evidence.
The arrest meant Davis spent a day in jail, and he was left with a criminal case looming over him for more than a year. Because he was declared indigent at the time, the county picked up his legal fees of a few hundred dollars.
The video of the traffic stop and additional details are at http://www.statesman.com/weblogs/investigations/2014/feb/24/despite-negative-breath-blood-tests-man-arrested-d/ .
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