Messy Military Lawyer. Today’s public service announcement involves traffic stops.
Let’s say you find yourself late one night early in the morning and the police have pulled you over. Are you going to hand them your military ID because you somehow think that’s going to get you out of trouble? Don’t do it. Hand them your driver’s license. Hopefully your driver’s license doesn’t even reference the fact that you have a military status. If it does, you probably want to go back and get a new driver’s license that does not reference your military status. There’s a number of reasons. Take a look at my content for many of them. Why the police officers going to ask you, have you been drinking? You are going to not respond to that question. In fact, the only approved word according to Messy Military Lawyer, if you’re asked a question that could potentially incriminate you, is “lawyer”.
If the police say, well, it’s just going to take longer and we got to get the drug dog here, and then we’re, oh, maybe you just want to go ahead and save yourself some time and trouble and go ahead and give me permission to search your vehicle. Do we think we’re going to consent? No. Ladies and gentlemen, we are not going to consent to that search. The only response when they ask you if you would give them permission because they’d really like to save you time and all that added headache, if you would just let them search your car, what you’re going to say is lawyer. Is it maybe going to last more time? Yeah, but guess what time is helping you in this situation? Because if you had had anything to drink, hopefully it’s not going to be arcing up by the time somebody’s going to compel you to provide breath or blood.
I get asked a lot of questions on here about whether or not you can be required to blow, required to give blood, et cetera. The answer’s going to vary depending upon whether or not you’re on a military installation and depending on whether or not who’s giving you the order. If you’re on a military installation, there is technically at least tacit consent if you are driving on the installation that you are subjecting yourself to potential searches, seizures and or compulsory blowing into a device. But, and this is a big but, the reason that they’re doing that is because it’s giving you permission to drive on the installation. You can refuse to blow. And if you do, you should expect that you’re not going to be able to drive on the installation. That could be inconvenient. You have to decide in your mind, based off of what is maybe in your system, is that going to be in your best interest to have the inconvenience of having somebody give you a lift or potentially having a criminal complaint lodged against you, plus UCMJ plus a reprimand.
If you’re out on the economy and by the economy I’m in the US again, you can also refuse to blow and you should refuse to blow. In Germany, they can beat you down and compel you to blow. So this is why I’m talking about conus. They’re going to ask you where you’ve been, don’t answer. They’re going to ask you how you’re doing tonight. Don’t answer. They’re going to try to chat you up because they’re also trying to assess whether or not you’re slurring. Don’t answer. Can’t wait for the keyboard warriors to tell me about how I’m lacking integrity and just trying to keep people out of trouble. That’s my job. Messy Military Lawyer
Jocelyn Stewart is a UCMJ court-martial attorney who specializes in defense of allegations of sexual assault for all branches of the military worldwide.
You Might Also Like These Articles
[post_grid_carousel id=”2246″]
