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Lawful Quotes

"Woe to those who decree unjust statutes and those who continually record unjust decisions, to deprive the needy of justice, and to rob the poor of My people of their rights."
�Isaiah 1:1,2 (Holy Bible)

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow."
�President Thomas Jefferson

"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.... The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
�Edmund Burke

"As a judge, and as an American, I have a virtual obsession with law and order. This country is great in large part because it follows law instead of following the vagaries of human nature, and because it provides an orderly arena for men and women to work, play, take care of their families and themselves, and make progress. But for me, as for anyone who knows the history of this country, 'law and order' begins with everyone following the Constitution�and I mean everyone, from policemen to presidents. Under the Constitution, the citizens of America are guaranteed certain vital rights as free people. These are not empty words. They tell America that no one, not police or FBI or anyone, can lawfully disturb their peace or security except when there is probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed."
�Judge Joseph Wapner, from his book, The People's Court - A View from the Bench (1987). Judge Wapner, of the TV show "The People's Court", is twice married to Judge Judy Sheindlin, of the TV show "Judge Judy" (who is the author of the book Don't Pee On My Leg and Tell Me It's Raining).

"There's a report out tonight that 24-years ago I was apprehended in Kennebunkport, Maine, for a DUI. That's an accurate story. I'm not proud of that. I oftentimes said that years ago I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much and I did on that night. I was pulled over. I admitted to the policeman that I had been drinking. I paid a fine. And I regret that it happened. But it did. I've learned my lesson."
�Governor George Bush Jr., rebroadcast on CNN Larry King Live, November 2, 2000

Vice President Dick Cheney first privately disclosed the arrests in 1989, after he had been nominated for Secretary of Defense. According to an account in Bob Woodward's The Commanders, Cheney told members of the Senate Armed Services committee about the DWI arrests during a closed confirmation hearing. Cheney told the senators that he believed it would be best to publicly disclose the busts. But Armed Services committee members said there was no need for the disclosure and subsequently confirmed Cheney in a 20-0 vote.

Matt Lauer: Laura's life is happy and orderly. Until... 2 days after her 17th birthday. Coming up, Laura's involvement in a fatal accident. It was a clear night, just after 8 PM. Laura, is driving just outside of Midland, near the local Lover's Lane. Laura runs a STOP sign and drives into the intersection of State Highway 349 and Farm Road 868. Her car slams into a southbound Corvair, driven by her "close friend", 17-year-old Michael Douglas. The impact is fatal. He was killed "almost" instantly of a broken neck. According to the police report, Laura is "not respnsible" for the accident. No charges are pressed.
�MSNBC - Headliners & Legends - "First Lady Laura Welch Bush", New Year's Eve 2001

"In a deal that spares him jail time, Roger Clinton pleaded guilty Tuesday to a non-alcohol-related charge of reckless driving. As part of the deal, the three initial charges -- two counts of drunken driving and one for disturbing the peace -- were dismissed. Clinton, who is the half-brother of former President Bill Clinton, could have faced a maximum 270 days in prison on those charges. Torrance Superior Court Judge Jesse Rodriguez sentenced Clinton to 24 months probation and ordered him to pay a fine of $1,351. In addition, the judge said he must report any new arrests within five days and that he must stay at least 100 yards away from the Lighthouse nightclub in Hermosa Beach, CA, where the incident began. The judge also said Clinton must not operate a vehicle with any amount of alcohol in his system, and he can't refuse an alcohol or drug test if requested by police. Clinton attorney, Mark Geragos, said his client is "extremely pleased" with the outcome. "It's a vindication of what we've said all along -- that it was a setup," said Geragos. The charge stems from a February 17 incident in which Clinton was accused of scuffling with a doorman at the Lighthouse, where he allegedly had drinks, and then left in a car. He was followed by police and charged with two counts of DUI. Geragos said he presented an audio tape to the judge that contained four of the seven arresting officers talking about his arrest 45 minutes beforehand. "Before he was even driving, they were staking him out," said Geragos. Roger Clinton was one of 140 people pardoned by his brother in the last days of the Clinton presidency. The younger Clinton had been convicted of a cocaine drug charge in Arkansas in 1985, while his brother was the state's governor."
�CNN NEWS, "Roger Clinton makes reckless driving plea," June 22, 2001

"It's safe to say that Jenna Bush is never going to be a member of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. MADD lobbied furiously in the 1980s to raise the legal drinking age from 18 or 19 in most states to 21, making most typical American college students imbibing outlaws for the first three years of college. Now that dump-the-beer dragnet has caught the president's daughter for the second time this year. In October 1995, 16-year-old Sarah Gore was caught by Maryland police with an open can of beer. "She broke our rules, and she broke the law. She's extremely miserable and unhappy," Tipper Gore told the local Fox affiliate. The Washington Post's coverage focused on Sarah, the star athlete and great student. The networks, broadcast and cable, said absolutely nothing. In 1996, only the vaguest whispers surfaced that Al Gore III, then just 13, was suspended from school for possession of marijuana. British newspapers sniffed that the vice president effectively had cried to editors for restraint. Fast forward four years, and Al III has an obvious brush with the law in August of 2000, driving 97 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone in North Carolina. You could even make a retroactive argument for Karenna Gore, since an August 2000 Time magazine profile noted, "By the time she hit the teen years, her spirited nature veered into open rebellion. She was big on 'adventuring,' climbing out of her window to shimmy down a manhole into the D.C. subway system for after-hours partying." I suspect they were probably not Kool-Aid parties."
�TownHall.com, "Bush's Kids vs. Gore's Kids", June 7, 2001

"Let it be understood once and for all, that the function of the traffic court is to convict the guilty, acquit the innocent, and improve traffic safety, not to be merely an arm of any revenue-collecting office."
�Judge Alfred Nesbitt, Florida v. Aquilera, et. al., State v. 711-101S Dade Co. (1979 FL--the RADAR case of the 86 MPH tree and the 28 MPH house)

"With 1000's of pages of traffic laws it's inevitable that even safe drivers will eventually get stopped. In fact every time you or I drive we will technically break at least one traffic law."
�Attorney Mel Leiding, author of How to Fight Your Traffic Ticket and Win!

"Modern traffic radar no longer relies on direct measurement of frequency changes to determine target speed. Speed traps are twentieth-century's version of highway robbery."
�Dale Smith, a Harvard-educated electrical engineer, and John Tomerlin, and editor of Road & Track magazine, authors of Beating the Radar Rap

"For decades, speed was the subject of the most widespread slogans drummed into the public. 'Speed kills' and 'slow down and live' are familiar ones peddled by the National Safety Council.... The findings showed a more complex picture of the role of speed than had ever been assumed before. Accident involvement rates are at a minimum at speeds between fifty and seventy five miles per hour.... Although obviously the severity of accidents is greater at higher speeds, the study revealed that considering accident frequency rates and severity, the number of injuries per vehicle miles traveled is at its minimum. Enforcement of the law brings no pressure on the car makers to increase the safety of their vehicles."
�Ralph Nader, from his book, Unsafe at any Speed: The Designed-In Dangers of the American Automobile (2nd Ed), quoting David Soloman's report for the Federal Highway Administration (FHwA), "Accidents on Main Rural Highways Related to Speed, Driver and Vehicle"

"Strictly speaking, a driver can register a BAC of .00% and still be convicted of a DUI. The level of BAC does not clear a driver when it is below the 'presumed level of intoxication.'"
�Tennessee Driver License Handbook and Study Guide, 2001

"That's not an impairment level, it's an arbitrary arrest level. We're going to have hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent people going to jail with no improvement in highway safety. What's even more amazing is the deafening silence that followed these anti-alcohol efforts. Each easy incremental victory � no matter how modest � emboldens these modern-day Prohibitionists to adopt new restrictions on consumption."
�American Beverage Institute, 1999

"Most studies of nerve conduction and transmission, EEG records, and behavioral performance indicate stimulant actions of low doses and depressant actions at high doses."
�Dr. H. Wallgren and Dr. H. Barry, from their report "Actions of Alcohol"

"The Smith and Wesson Breathalizer� 1000 machine was found to be inaccurate in 69% of the NHTSA tests.... No state totally prohibits driving a motor vehicle after consuming some alcohol (limited exception: states that have a zero tolerance for underage drivers). Don't plead guilty until you know your rights. Many people would never be stopped on the highway by the police except that a vehicle defect exists such that the officer would have 'reasonable cause' to pull them over to 'advise' them of the problem. The 'reasonable cause' to stop you can quickly become 'probable cause' to detain you. If you are stopped for a traffic violation, don't argue with the police officer. Simply give the officer your documents, and don't talk except to respond in the most basic fashion. Your pocket recorder will audiotape the transaction for your use. Regardless of the cause for the stop, NEVER admit to alcohol consumption. Don't blurt out anything to the officer in an attempt to explain the circumstances., or it will be used against you later in court."
�Attorneys William Head and Reese Joye, authors of 101 Ways to Avoid a Drunk Driving Conviction

QUESTION: "Does the current government emphasis on waging a drunk-driving and a 'drink-driving' war divert attention from the real causes of injury and death, such as uncrashworthy vehicles?"
RALPH NADER ON DRUNK DRIVING: "Well, if the emphasis is on the driver and not the vehicle, and that's a fight we've been having for years, they shouldn't be against one another, they should be both, a focus on both."
�From an interview with the webmaster, John Lee, for The Southerner - Appalachian Trials

"When the state seeks to prove one is driving under the influence of a drug, rather than an alcoholic intoxicant, it is not necessary to specifically prove which drug has been ingested in order to qualify it as either a "narcotic drug" or one "producing stimulating effects on the central nervous system." Such a burden would be impossible to overcome by the state, especially if the suspect refused to take a blood test. Obviously, any combination of intoxicants can be sufficient to render a person under the influence."
�Steven Oberman, criminal defense lawyer in Knoxville, general sessions judge and University of Tennessee law school professor, in his book, DUI: The Crime and Its Consequences in Tennessee

"You can be arrested for driving under the influence of LEGAL prescription or nonprescription drugs."
�David W. Kelley, California Highway Patrol, in his book, How to Talk Your Way Out of a Traffic Ticket - Plus, How to Win in Court

"Where rights secured by the Constitution are concerned, there can be no rule-making or legislation that would abrogate them."
�US Supreme Court, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436

"The use of courts as local revenue-producing agencies is an abuse of the judicial process. It has long been recognized as unconstitutional for a judge's income to be dependent on the outcome of cases. But a similar result often occurs when the budget of a court is set in relation to the fines the court imposes or when a county or city comes to rely on whatever surplus is produced. Strictly local municipal courts offer a separate, substandard justice and warrant a thourough review on their own. At their worst, they are merely revenue-gathering agencies masquerading as courts. Their sole reason for being is the funds that their municipality draws from them. If the funds disappeared, few of the cities would consider the court an important civic service. Their limits and oversight are ill-defined, and their flexibility can sometimes disguise mere arbitrariness. We believe they fall much closer to the worst model than to the best one. A majority of complaints about judges that come to the Administrative Office of the Courts originate with municipal courts. [T]he financial interest of local government clearly rests with the present system."
�To Serve All People: A Report from the Commission on the Future of the Tennessee Judicial System 1996

"If we gave up our freedom as the price of security, we would no longer be the great nation that we are."
�US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, former director of ACLU, C-SPAN, "Justice Ginsburg: Freedom more important than security", Gannett News Service, Tuscon Citizen, Jan. 31, 2002

Can you imagine working at the following company? It has a little over 500 employees with the following statistics:

• 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
• 7 have been arrested for fraud
• 19 have been accused of writing bad checks
• 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses
• 3 have been arrested for assault
• 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
• 14 have been arrested on drug related charges
• 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
• 21 are current defendants in lawsuits
  In 1998 alone:
• 217 traffic violations
• Over 100 were stopped for drunk driving
• 3,000 unpaid parking tickets were issued

Can you guess which organization this is? Give up? Scroll down for the answer...

It's the 535 members of your United States Congress. The same group that perpetually cranks out hundreds upon hundreds of new laws designed to keep the rest of us in line. By claiming "Constitutional immunity" our political overseers avoid criminal prosecution for all traffic crimes. These are only statistics for Washington DC, Virginia and Maryland police files, and do not reflect traffic crimes committed in other jurisdictions.

PS: This is not a joke.