The Constitution’s Shifting Limits

To those of us who deal with driving-under-the-influence cases on a daily basis, the selective ignorance of both the law and the U.S. Constitution exhibited by William Cavenaugh’s letter (Dec. 18) are nothing new. However, it was Cavenaugh’s reactionary tone and his monopoly on knee-jerk self-righteousness that caused us to respond.

Richard Tuthill was stopped at a sobriety checkpoint, found to have a blood alcohol content of 0.12 and convicted of driving under the influence. Represented by a court-appointed attorney, he appealed the case on the ground that his U.S. Constitutional Fourth Amendment rights had been violated. He lost and is to be sentenced. Cavenaugh’s conclusions about blood alcohol content oversimplify the issue. Blood alcohol analysis is not clear-cut. Depending on the test and surrounding factors (gender, body weight, drinking pattern, tolerance, absorption rate and elimination rate), a 0.12 can very well be a “borderline” case. That, of course, generously presumes that the test is valid and, depending on the kind of test, the varying margin of error.

But Cavenaugh’s true mean-spiritedness and wrongheadedness is reflected in his vilification of Tuthill as “an unemployed high school dropout with a 2-year-old son and a publicly paid lawyer.”

Unlike Cavenaugh, ideally the law does not discriminate on the basis of socioeconomic status. If you need a lawyer you will be given one; that is your constitutional guarantee.

What really reveals Cavenaugh’s malignant atavism is his anger that Tuthill should assert his innocence, assert his rights, and we should have to pay for it! The unmitigated gall!

Constitutional rights are neither technicalities nor cost effective. Nor are they parsimoniously doled out only to the most deserving of us and those of us least likely to test and define the true limits of those rights. And that’s the rub that people, alleged criminals, be they accused drunk drivers or whatever, should have these same rights to use that Cavenaugh has.

For what Cavenaugh fails to grasp is that the Constitution is not static; it is defined by its shifting limits. The products of those limits, constitutional rights, are achieved only by the accused and his attorney--publicly paid or not--attempting constitutional definition and vindication.

Mr. Cavenaugh, give your three cheers to the Supreme Court. Thanks to people like Tuthill and his attorney, you and your family can also sleep safe in the knowledge that some hobnailed thug in a uniform won’t kick down your door to peruse the reading material under your mattress. We’ll reserve our cheers for them.

MARK A. DAVIS

and LINDA VAN WINKLE

Santa Ana