Paris Hilton was arrested for DUI in Hollywood early this morning. CNN reports that she was pulled over at about 12:30 a.m. MSNBC's report has a video with Harvey Levin reporting.
Paris defended herself to radio host Ryan Seacrest during his Thursday morning show on Los Angeles station KIIS-FM. "It was nothing,” she said.
Ours is a time of gradual social change; some have called it the era of neo-prohibition. Over the years, a small, vocal minority of zealots has succeeded in swinging the pendulum of civil liberties back toward the disastrous mistake of the 1920s and early 1930s. You know who they are, and this blog is dedicated to them.
The True Believer needs no statistics to make her case. She eschews scientific data and prefers emotion to logic. Pitifully unhappy herself, the True Believer is more comfortable displaying grief-stricken accident victims than discussing the merits of legislation. Graphic photographs and crash exhibits have all but replaced serious debate about how to stop impaired driving. Aided by politicians in desperate need of resonating sound bites, the True Believer has co-opted facially neutral terms like "drinking and driving." So pervasive is this misuse of terms that the mainstream media now uses "drunk driving," "impaired driving" and "drinking and driving" interchangeably. Myths about DUI crimes are ubiquitous; respected newspapers print them daily and unquestioningly. One by one, the civil rights that you and I enjoy are being taken away by special interest groups touting law and order rhetoric and dire threats to public safety.
The time has come for it to stop.
You rightly may ask who am I to take such a stand against the True Believers of the world. It is true that I am only one lawyer from a humble fishing village on the central coast of California. But I believe in the marketplace of ideas. I believe that knowledge will defeat fear. I believe that truth will triumph over ignorance and deception. I believe in the power of the child who had the courage to declare that the emperor had no clothes.
And it will take tremendous courage. Courage to face the suffering victims of unspeakable tragedies and quietly speak the truth. Courage to teach well-intentioned friends that they have been misled by those willing to exploit their own grief to further an insidious agenda. Courage to stand up when it seems the entire universe is against you. And, above all, courage to be patient and wait confidently for the right moment to change the hearts and minds of thinking
people everywhere.
Dare to disbelieve.
SFGate reports there were 1,688 arrests across California this past weekend, compared with 1,497 last year. In the nine- county Bay Area, the CHP arrested 275 DUI suspects, compared with 231 last year. DailyReviewOnline.com reports that Alameda County's DUI arrests dropped, but a close reading of the article reveals that the only drop mentioned is the decrease in arrests when compared to the Memorial Day weekend.
The Lexington (Kentucky) Herald-Leader reported yesterday that singer Marty Stuart began serving his DUI sentence of 48 hours in jail. Among Stuart's hits was the classic, "The Whiskey Ain't Workin'."
Jack Kulp, the County Managing Director of Maui, resigned his position last Friday following a DUI arrest at a sobriety checkpoint, according to a report in the Honolulu Advisor. The County Managing Director is the county's top non-elected official. Kulp was arrested in December and allegedly had a BAC of .14. He is challenging the constitutionality of the roadblock where he was stopped. The Advisor reports that Kulp was convicted of DUI in Nevada in 2002.
According to an article in the Florida Times-Union today, a husband and wife each blamed the other for an allegedly DUI-related accident last December that left a young mother dead and her husband in a coma.
The victims, Joe and Krystal Duss, were driving their two twin boys along Beach Boulevard in Jackonsonville, Florida when a Nissan driven by either Larry or Dianeshia Johnson slid into their van. Krystal Duss was killed and Joe Duss suffered injuries resulting in a nine day coma, but fortunately, the twin boys were not injured.
After much speculation and months of investigation, authorities now believe Dianeshia Johnson was behind the wheel that night. Lab tests show that "an impression on the sole of her left shoe matched the design and measurements of the Nissan's brake pedal..." Furthermore, a drop of blood taken from the passenger side airbag was tested and found to belong to Larry Johnson. A blood test taken at the hospital following the accident determined Dianeshia's blood alcohol level to be at 0.152%. Ms. Johnson has been charged with drunken driving manslaughter.
The Northeastern Pennsylvania Times-Leader reports that Robert Thomas was arrested for an alleged DUI on June 2 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Thomas allegedly drove the wrong way on a one-way street, hitting five parked cars before abandoning his Dodge Durango in the middle of the street. He was apprehended a short time later. His alleged BAC was 0.206.
According to the report, Thomas had been charged a month earlier with underage drinking, public drunkenness and receiving stolen property.
The Denver Post reports the preliminary statistics for DUI arrests over the July 4th weekend show what is perhaps a dramatic drop. With 33 of 40 agencies reporting thus far, 375 people were arrested over the holiday weekend, compared to 545 people arrested in 1999, the last time the 4th fell on a Sunday.
It is too early to conclude much from the numbers, though, as the report did not disclose which agencies had yet to report their arrests.
Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair was in court again yesterday in Nashville, where his attorney argued a motion to exclude the breath test evidence in the case. According to reports from ESPN and an AP report carried in the South Mississippi Sun-Herald, Judge Cheryl Blackburn will rule on the motion as soon as her docket permits.
McNair was arrested in May of last year by Officer Shawn Taylor in downtown Nashville. Taylor was later suspended for 15 days for violating department procedure in arresting McNair and for taking arrest videos home with him.
NY Post reports Noreen Michelson was busted for DWI after leaving a party hosted by friend William Shepard. Michelson called Shepard for a ride home from jail, and when he arrived, police arrested him for DWI as well.