Are State, Feds Tying Police Grant Money to DUI Arrest Quotas?
Chicago, IL. Feb. 11 – One DUI arrest every 10 hours.
Police call it an “objective.” Or a “guideline.”
Former Will County State’s Attorney Jeff Tomczak calls it a “quota.” And he said the language — found in the fine print of grants funding some suburban police patrols — could undermine drunken-driving cases when they reach a courtroom.
“I haven’t seen anything like this before,” said Tomczak, now a criminal defense attorney.
Local law enforcement officials say Tomczak’s wrong. Under a real quota system, officers get punished when the numbers don’t add up. That’s not the case here, they said, and there must be some way to find out if federal money has been spent wisely.
“There is no quota system in the Will County Sheriff’s Office,” Deputy Chief Ken Kaupas said.
But Tomczak’s not alone. The Governors Highway Safety Association also said the grant language should be changed, but not for fear of a legal challenge.
Executive director Barbara Harsha said the public simply might not like it if officers are told how often to make an arrest, and that could make the job harder for police.
The grants in question are funded federally but distributed by the Illinois Department of Transportation, which wrote the “performance objectives” in the documents to offer some accountability to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The grants are designed to help police cut down on alcohol-related crashes and curb drivers’ dangerous behaviors.
A Will County IDOT grant from 2009 to 2010 said deputies were expected to write one ticket or warning each hour they were on patrol and make one drunken-driving arrest every 10 hours.
Similar language can be found in grants given to Shorewood and Minooka around the same time.
But Kaupas said his agency didn’t quite meet that mark last year.
He said Will County made three DUI arrests in 157.5 officer hours during alcohol-enforcement details funded by IDOT in May, August and September. To meet the grant’s “performance objectives,” that number should have been more like 15 or 16…
Tomczak said defense attorneys could use the grant to suggest officers are being compelled to make arrests. He’s even made the argument, putting Will County Sgt. Steve Byland on the stand during a DUI case last month to talk about the traffic division Byland leads.
Byland told a judge his department has no quota system, but he said it would have to answer to a grant representative if the numbers fail to add up.
“If he does not make a certain rate per se,” Byland said, “then we would have to explain to him what happened that month.”
Kaupas said IDOT-funded details are always summarized in a report to the agency.
Tomczak’s client eventually was found not guilty. But Harsha said she hasn’t heard of a DUI arrest being thrown out of court for such language.
She did say IDOT should consider asking officers to make a certain number of traffic stops or “interactions” with the public — not arrests. She said most states steer away from the language used by Illinois.
“There’s no rule that says you can’t have an objective that has a certain number of arrests per hour,” Harsha said.
“But it does give the appearance of having a quota.”
Dictator Obama's Secretary of War Vinnie Da Chin Panetta and the Pentagram Joints Chief Of Operation Northwoods testified to Congress yesterday that Obama takes his orders to invade from United Nations and NATO, not Congress.
This is the equivalent ot Caesar crossing the Rubicon with his military to invade Rome under martial law, resulting in civil war, and 5 years later every member of the Roman Senate stabbing Caesar in the back...literally on the Ides Of March (next week...).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Caesar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_rubicon
ATICLES OF IMPEACHMENT RESOLUTION 2012
H.CON.RES.107 -- Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high... (Introduced in House - IH)
HCON 107 IH
112th CONGRESS
2d Session
H. CON. RES. 107
Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 7, 2012
Mr. JONES submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.
Whereas the cornerstone of the Republic is honoring Congress's exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that, except in response to an actual or imminent attack against the territory of the United States, the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress violates Congress's exclusive power to declare war under article I, section 8, clause 11 of the Constitution and therefore constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution.
Coup D’etat: Pentagon & Obama Declare Congress Ceremonial
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s testimony asserting that the United Nations and NATO have supreme authority over the actions of the United States military, words which effectively declare Congress a ceremonial relic, have prompted Congressman Walter Jones to introduce a resolution that re-affirms such behavior as an “impeachable high crime and misdemeanor” under the Constitution.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing yesterday, Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey brazenly admitted that their authority comes not from the U.S. Constitution, but that the United States is subservient to and takes its marching orders from the United Nations and NATO, international bodies over which the American people have no democratic influence.
Panetta was asked by Senator Jeff Sessions, “We spend our time worrying about the U.N., the Arab League, NATO and too little time, in my opinion, worrying about the elected representatives of the United States. As you go forward, will you consult with the United States Congress?”
The Defense Secretary responded “You know, our goal would be to seek international permission. And we would come to the Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this, whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress.”
Despite Sessions’ repeated efforts to get Panetta to acknowledge that the United States Congress is supreme to the likes of NATO and the UN, Panetta exalted the power of international bodies over the US legislative branch.
“I’m really baffled by the idea that somehow an international assembly provides a legal basis for the United States military to be deployed in combat,” Sessions said. “I don’t believe it’s close to being correct. They provide no legal authority. The only legal authority that’s required to deploy the United States military is of the Congress and the president and the law and the Constitution.”
In an effort to re-affirm the fact that “the use of offensive military force by a President without prior and clear authorization of an Act of Congress constitutes an impeachable high crime and misdemeanor under article II, section 4 of the Constitution,” Republican Congressman Walter Jones has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives.
Pentagon Launches Desperate Damage Control Over Shocking Panetta Testimony
The Pentagon is engaging in damage control after shocking testimony yesterday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at a Senate Armed Services Committee congressional hearing during which it was confirmed that the U.S. government is now completely beholden to international power structures and that the legislative branch is a worthless relic.
During the hearing yesterday Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey brazenly admitted that their authority comes not from the U.S. Constitution, but that the United States is subservient to and takes its marching orders from the United Nations and NATO, international bodies over which the American people have no democratic influence.
Panetta was asked by Senator Jeff Sessions, “We spend our time worrying about the U.N., the Arab League, NATO and too little time, in my opinion, worrying about the elected representatives of the United States. As you go forward, will you consult with the United States Congress?”
The Defense Secretary responded “You know, our goal would be to seek international permission. And we would come to the Congress and inform you and determine how best to approach this, whether or not we would want to get permission from the Congress.”
Despite Sessions’ repeated efforts to get Panetta to acknowledge that the United States Congress is supreme to the likes of NATO and the UN, Panetta exalted the power of international bodies over the US legislative branch.
“I’m really baffled by the idea that somehow an international assembly provides a legal basis for the United States military to be deployed in combat,” Sessions said. “I don’t believe it’s close to being correct. They provide no legal authority. The only legal authority that’s required to deploy the United States military is of the Congress and the president and the law and the Constitution.”
Panetta’s assertion that he would seek “international permission” before ‘informing’ Congress about the actions of the US military provoked a firestorm of controversy, prompting the Pentagon to engage in damage control by claiming Panetta’s comments were misinterpreted.
“He was re-emphasizing the need for an international mandate. We are not ceding U.S. decision-making authority to some foreign body,” a defense official told CNN.
However, this is not the first time that the authority of international bodies has been framed as being superior to the US Congress and the Constitution.
In June last year, President Obama arrogantly expressed his hostility to the rule of law when he dismissed the need to get congressional authorization to commit the United States to a military intervention in Libya, churlishly dismissing criticism and remarking, “I don’t even have to get to the Constitutional question.”
Obama tried to legitimize his failure to obtain Congressional approval for military involvement by sending a letter to Speaker of the House John Boehner in which he said the military assault was “authorized by the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council.”
Panetta’s testimony that the US looks to obtain “international permission” before it acts, allied with Obama citing the UN as the supreme authority while trashing the power of Congress, prove that the United States has ceded control over its own affairs to unelected international bureaucrats, just as the countries of the European Union have done likewise.
Attorney General Eric Holder, the top “legal” voice of the US regime, argued to Northwestern University law students that the US Constitution is no limit to the regime dictatorially assassinating Americans. This follows regime arguments to seize and “disappear” any person in opposition to regime dictates as “terrorist supporters,” and extracting their confessions with controlled drowning (euphemistically “waterboarding”), found by all US and international courts as torture. The regime’s followers in Congress voted for legislation (2006 Military Commissions Act, 2012 NDAA) that these dictates are consistent with the US Constitution.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/03/attorney-general-holder-degrades-us-to-fascist-assassination-nation-99-response.html
