November 20, 2008
Lawyer: Racist breathalyzers target blacks
Just when you think you've heard it all, a criminal defense attorney proves there's at least one more unique-yet-idiotic explanation for his client's guilt: Machines that test for alcohol content discriminate against blacks.
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. -- A lawyer representing a man charged with drunken driving has claimed Connecticut's breathalyzers discriminate against blacks.
Attorney James Ruane represents 40-year-old Tyrone Brown, of Norwalk, who was arrested April 9 by Connecticut State Police on Interstate 95 in Fairfield.
In a motion filed Tuesday in Bridgeport Superior Court, Ruane asked a judge to suppress his client's breathalyzer test results.
He contends the device used by state police and most local police departments, the Intoxilyzer 5000, discriminates against blacks.
Ruane said research shows the lung capacity of a black man is 3 percent lower than a white man’s and, therefore, black men's test results vary from the sobriety standard set by the device.
I'm impressed.
No, really, I am. I've heard some pretty stupid things in court -- my favorite being the defense whore expert witness who testified in a DUI trial that some people drive better after they've had an alcoholic beverage or two.
But claiming that physiological differences between blacks and the rest of the population somehow put them at a legal disadvantage opens up a can of worms that would usually have the race pimps out in force calling for conservative blood.
Argue that intelligence has a racial component, as did the authors of The Bell Curve, and you're pilloried as a vile racist.
Argue that blacks are bad swimmers and poor managers because they lack buoyancy and leadership qualities, as did former Dodger General Manager Al Campanis, and you end up fired and pilloried as a racist (although "idiot" seems apropos, too).
But argue that blacks' lungs are smaller than whites' and you're simply pointing out how The Man manages to figure out yet another way to screw over the ever-downtrodden black man, via the White Devils' nefarious machinery.
Wasn't it the Rev. Martin Luther King who said he dreamed of the day when his children would be judged by the volumetric capacity of their lungs content of their character and not the color of their skin?
It's a proud day for the legal profession.
Sometimes I really hate lawyers.
Posted by Mike Lief at November 20, 2008 11:10 PM
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Comments
Now THAT is what I call the "Audacity of Hope!"
Posted by: Thin Ice, Sr. at November 21, 2008 04:27 AM