Maybe their faces will turn up on milk cartons

Neutral and detached magistrates are looking more and more like an endangered species -- particularly in Missouri, according to this piece in the ABA Journal.

In southwest Missouri law enforcement types have decided to declare open season on motorists' 4th Amendment rights and run No Refusal Weekends at DWI checkpoints. That's right, not only will motorists be subject to being stopped without probable cause, they will be compelled to produce evidence that will be used to prosecute them.

Once again we have the police pontificating about the dangers of drunk driving and that motorists should be aware that it's against the law. Points taken. It is dangerous, and illegal, to get behind the wheel of a car if you're intoxicated. The problem is that everyone of us is different and our bodies process alcohol in different ways. Checkpoints don't prevent folks from breaking the law. All they do is allow the police to cherry pick whomever they wish to stop - absent any evidence of bad driving.

But I digress. The new twist in Missouri is the appearance of prosecutors and judges at these checkpoints. Now the officers can fill in check-the-box formatted search warrant affidavits and have a judge sign them on the spot without ever questioning the need to execute a forced blood draw. The presence of the prosecutors allows the state to have little confabs with the men in black robes before the motorist ever gets to speak with an attorney.

If we're going to be fair, then there should also be court-appointed attorneys or public defenders present to consult with the motorists whom are facing the needle and to argue the merits of a search warrant before the judge. But, of course, we'll never see that because our presence would just gum up the works and might actually cause the police and prosecutors to work to obtain convictions in DWI cases.

It's always so nice to see judges who are willing to prostitute themselves out in order to favor curry with the voters for being so tough on crime. If these judges cared one iota about the Constitution they swore to uphold when they took their oath of office, they wouldn't accept fill-in-the-blank or computer generated "auto-texted" search warrant applications for forcible blood draws. If these judges were interested in being neutral and detached, they would question the officers for the need to strap a motorist down and extract a blood sample for a misdemeanor that's just one step removed from a traffic ticket.

But they don't.

Washington's latest assault on the Fourth Amendment

The existence of sobriety checkpoints on our roadways is an affront to the Fourth Amendment. The very notion that it's okay for the police to stop folks without cause simply because they are driving on the road should have all of us up in arms.

Of course it doesn't because most folks are lemmings who are more than happy to hand over their liberty in exchange for the "protection" of the state.

The Fourth Amendment says that the police can't arrest you without a warrant absent probable cause. Our courts managed to screw that up by proclaiming that the police can stop a person if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that criminal activity might be afoot. This lowering of the standard had led to police arresting motorists for driving while intoxicated even though they can't point to a single traffic violation as the basis for the stop.

Now the Constitution has never gotten in the way of our beloved senators and representatives in Washington. Quite a few senators are up in arms over a couple of apps available for your smartphone that will tip you off to the location of sobriety checkpoints. The senators called on Apple, Google and Research in Motion to remove the apps from the online stores.

As a result, if you own a BlackBerry, RIM sold you down the river. (But you can still get a game the glorifies Al Capone.)

PhantomALERT and Trapster will provide motorists with notices of nearby checkpoints as well as speedtraps and red light cameras.

"These applications are nothing more than a how-to guide in avoiding law enforcement and they provide drunk drivers with the tools they need to go undetected, putting innocent families and children at risk." Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) 

Hey, Chuck, since you took that oath to uphold the Constitution, you might want to revisit the presumption of innocence and the Fourth Amendment. It's not against the law to have a drink and then get behind the wheel of a car. It's against the law to do so if you've lost the normal use of your mental or physical faculties.

Sure, there will be drivers who are intoxicated that avoid a checkpoint thanks to their smartphone -- but there will be many more drivers who are able to avoid the assault on their civil liberties and privacy. Contrary to what Mr. Schumer and his ilk believe, we shouldn't be subjected to mandatory encounters with the police just because there are some folks out there breaking the law.