On the day the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation to relax the police department's zero tolerance policy and the mayor asserted that officers are not "targeting drivers who have a drink at dinner," Jackson Williams, a former drunken driving prosecutor, waited seven hours for a chance to defend himself in D.C. Superior Court.
He had been arrested in September 2004 under that policy for registering a .02 blood alcohol level after a fender bender with a taxi. He had told the officer he'd had two beers two hours before at the Old Ebbitt Grill.
By 4:30 Tuesday afternoon, Superior Court Magistrate Judge Michael J. McCarthy noted that Williams, 39, now a policy analyst in the District, had been waiting 258 days for the court to hear his case. Then he asked Williams to come back Dec. 7. It will be his sixth appearance.
"I've had alcohol training. I've seen the videos. I've prosecuted these cases," said Williams, a University Park resident who once served as chief DUI prosecutor in Springfield, Ill. "I know they're just wasting their time on people like me."
When Williams was arrested, the D.C. Code said that drivers with a blood alcohol level of "less than .03" could be considered intoxicated and arrested if there is other evidence of impairment. The D.C. Council on Tuesday voted 9 to 3 to change that law, proposing that a driver with a blood alcohol level below .05 be presumed sober. Drivers with levels of .05 to .079 will be in a "neutral zone" and could be arrested if there is other evidence of impairment. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) has 10 days to decide whether to veto the change.
The Department of Motor Vehicles has already suspended Jackson Williams's license for three months because of the charge. And Williams has since moved out of the District to Maryland, he said, in part because of the arrest.
Williams was charged with driving under the influence and operating while impaired, two virtually identical laws. The DUI charge was dismissed in January. He's fighting the other charge by trying to have the law declared unconstitutionally vague because it "encourages arbitrary enforcement."
The policy, he argued, has given officers the ability to make arrests based on "mere alcohol use" rather than evidence of impairment.
But even as the council voted to "clarify" the drunken driving law to prohibit such arrests, the origins of the law and what evolved into the D.C. police policy are murky.
In March 1998, council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) introduced legislation to lower the legal limit for intoxication from .10 to .08.
On July 7 of that year, then-council member Sandy Allen tried to tack an amendment onto the open-container law to lower the level at which a driver could be considered intoxicated from .05 to .03 and below.
On July 13, according to the thick legislative record, Allen again brought up the amendment and asked that it be attached to Schwartz's bill. There was no discussion. All three committee members -- Allen, Sharon Ambrose and Harry Thomas -- voted in favor.
