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From: tw8023@pyuxii.UUCP (T Wheeler)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.politics,net.legal,net.auto
Subject: Re: Re: DWI Crackdowns
Message-ID: <166@pyuxii.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 26-Jul-85 08:55:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxii.166
Posted: Fri Jul 26 08:55:11 1985
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I think if you stop and ponder for a moment, your statement that a person
has a "right" to charge something on a credit card falla through the cracks.
Being able to charge something is a priveledge granted by the credit
giver.  That priveledge can be revoked at any time.  Just do not pay
your bills and you will see haow fast your ?RIGHT? is usurped.  Now, as
to your right to own an automobile, you are correct.  However, it is deemed
a priveledge to be able to take said automobile out on a public roadway
and drive.  There are a few large privately owned tracts of land still
around where the owners do not bother to license or register some
vehicles as they are never driven off the private property.  This is
their right.  However, once they decide to take those vehicles off that
property on to other lands, be they private or public, they must then
be registered and licensed in order to gain the privaledge of doing so.

As to the idea that an automobile cannot be confiscated because it is
private property and property owners have certain rights, there are
many laws which say this can, and indeed is, be done.  In New Jersey,
and many other states, there are laws on the books which state that
any vehicle used in the commission of a crime can be confiscated and
sold by the state.  The most noticeable incidence of this is the
confiscating of vehilces (cars, trucks, boats, aircraft) used transport
illegal controled substances (drugs).  Here in New Jersey, there are
state run auctions to sell off the autos collected during the year
which were used in the commission of a crime.

As to DWI, all that has to be done is to make DWI a crime for which
the auto can be confiscated.  This can be difficult to do in some states
where ther is an overabundace of lawyers as it would reduce their odds
for winning a case.  By the way, just heard that New Jersey contains
the highest percentage of lawyers per capita of any political entity
IN THE WORLD.  We also have the dubious distinction of having nearly
10% of all of the lawyers in the WORLD.  No wonder this place is so
screwed up.  Well, anyway, confiscation of an automobile in a DWI
incident is possible and is, or can be, squarely within the law.
Rights and privledges can and are revoked by the courts if a person
is found guilty of certain crimes.  Confiscation of liberty and
property are punishments meted out for the quilty.  Rights and
privledges only extend as far as they do not impinge on the publics
rights or privledges.  That is, you can get slap-dash, fall-down
drunk in your home, go out and get in your car and smash it through
your garage as long as you remain on your property.  You may get a
ticket for noise pollution or maintaining unsightly property, but
you can't be charged with DWI or public drunkeness.  
T. C. Wheeler