Resnick takes ''full responsibility'' for DUI arrest; pleads ''not-guilty''

Media outlets across the state are reporting that Ohio Supreme Court Justice Alice Robie Resnick has released a six-sentence statement, marking her first public comment since being arrested Monday and charged with driving under the influence. The short statement says volumes.

Resnick, who has plead 'not-guilty' to the charges, claims she will "accept full responsibility for my actions." The 65-year-old justice goes on to state she has had "22 years of sobriety".

According to media reports, State Bureau of Motor Vehicle Records show Resnick was cited for failure to control and weaving in a July 6 accident last year in Toledo. She also was involved in accidents, but not cited, in August 2002 and May 1998.

In video tape of the incident, recorded after six 911 callers reported her for driving erratically, Resnick told police officers she had not had anything to drink. She failed roadside sobriety tests and registered a 0.216 blood alcohol content — more than twice the legal limit of 0.08 percent — on a portable breath test.

Resnick was driving a state-owned vehicle at the time of her arrest. Under a state policy, she will be barred from driving state-owned vehicles for three years, regardless of the outcome of her court case, because she refused to take the Breathalyzer test. That refusal also means her driver's license is automatically suspended for one year under state law.

The Columbus Dispatch reported Thursday that Ohio’s Code of Judicial Conduct specifically advises judges to respect and comply with the law, always act in a way that promotes public confidence and not "allude to" their judgeship during police traffic stops. However, in one segment of the police video, Resnick can be heard telling troopers "I've always said a Supreme Court justice should have a highway patrolman driving them." Earlier, police say Resnick announced her position as a justice to officers, before driving away against their orders.

Ohio Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer said Resnick will continue to hear and rule on cases that come before the Court remotely. "She will participate and vote on these cases by consulting the briefs and the video of the arguments."

In upholding the constitutionality of the (now defunct) Ohio concealed carry ban in 2003, Justice Resnick sided with the majority, ruling that the restriction on the right to bear arms for self-defense was necessary because it served "a compelling government interest'' - that of protecting the "public safety."

For an excellent comparison of hypocracy of gun ban prohibitionists viewed through the way they treat "alcohol control", click on the "Read More..." link below.

The following is an excerpt from a piece originally published in a 1997 Maryland Law Review, by David B. Kopel and Christopher C. Little. The entire study can be viewed in its entirety here.

It is undisputed that firearms are used for defensive purposes at least several tens of thousands of times per year. Yet the [gun ban lobby] does not propose banning a product that is involved in more deaths every year than guns, a product that does not prevent any crimes. That product is alcohol, which is in some ways a close analogue to guns.

Though a legal drug rather than a manufactured tool, alcohol, like guns, is used recreationally by millions of Americans. Although the manner in which harm is wrought by drinking (alcohol-related diseases, accidents caused by drunks, and criminal violence perpetrated by the disinhibited) is not exactly the same as with guns (suicide, firearms accidents, and crimes perpetrated with guns), alcohol, like guns, is a material cause of harm to many Americans. Further, because alcohol disinhibits potential criminals and lowers the defensive awareness of potential victims, it contributes to a much larger fraction of violent crime than do firearms. The use of alcohol is a material cause of approximately 100,000 deaths every year in America, nearly three times as many deaths as caused by firearms. The parallel between alcohol and firearms is also reflected by the fact that the same agency supervises the two items: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), which might aptly be called the "Bureau of Semi-Licit but Morally Suspect Consumer Products."

In contrast to [it's] expansive gun control arguments..., the [gun ban lobby] limits its attention to the societal costs of alcohol to vanilla-pale measures such as drunk driving roadblocks. Where is the [gun ban lobby's] argument for additional "alcohol control" laws analogous to those they advocate for guns? Why not impose a ban on distilled liquor on the basis that "no one needs" that much alcoholic firepower to have a good time? (This is the usual line of argument for laws banning assault weapons.) More important, where are the [gun ban lobby's] position papers on the reinstitution of domestic prohibition? Why are we to accept the toll exacted on society by the easy availability of alcohol, but not that of the less-easy availability of guns, especially when the former kills nearly three times more than the latter?

...Advocates of prohibitive gun control laws--most of whom, it is safe to assume, imbibe on occasion--apparently accept the cost to society of the ease with which alcohol is procured and consumed, most likely because drinking is pleasurable and the large majority of drinkers are responsible. Thus the [gun ban lobby] does not apply the same logic to gun ownership as to alcohol, even though the vast majority of gun owners take pleasure in owning firearms and exercise that right responsibly. Guns are singled out for prohibitionist legislation, while a relatively blind eye is turned toward the much heavier toll exacted by the sale and consumption of alcohol.

This analogy between guns and alcohol is not intended to minimize either the annual tragedy of 35,000 firearms-related deaths or of 100,000 alcohol-related deaths. It is only intended to put matters in perspective and to highlight that, as a matter of course, Americans accept the social costs of potentially dangerous substances such as alcohol, or potentially dangerous objects such as automobiles and guns, because of the benefits those things afford. One may certainly argue that alcohol actually provides little benefit to society, but the experiment with alcohol prohibition during the 1920s demonstrated that millions of Americans found the recreational benefits of alcohol consumption to be sufficient justification for resistance to that policy. It was this stubborn refusal of Americans to give up their freedom, combined with the observation of how alcohol prohibition lined the pockets of gangsters, that led to the repeal of Prohibition. Few today, [the gun ban lobby] included, would argue for the resurrection of the failed Prohibition experiment, even though alcohol actually inflicts greater harm on society than do firearms.

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