DEAD ZONE
July 31st, 2003, 07:56 AM
An Oslo man picked up for drunk driving had a blood-alcohol level of 2.59 per thousand. (The legal limit in most U.S. states is 0.8 or 1.0, but in Norway it's a shockingly low 0.2.) "A level of 2.0," note the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, "is reckoned to be when signs of alcohol poisoning arise, and the subject exhibits a total loss of control."
It should have been an open-and-shut case, especially since the guy confessed to driving drunk. But he told a newspaper: "I was both drunk and hung over when I was questioned. I signed a confession to get out of an uncomfortable situation. Later I withdrew the confession." A court threw out the charges, agreeing with the man that his confession to drunk driving was invalid because he was too drunk to make it. A defense like this would never fly in Saudi Arabia.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=594014
It should have been an open-and-shut case, especially since the guy confessed to driving drunk. But he told a newspaper: "I was both drunk and hung over when I was questioned. I signed a confession to get out of an uncomfortable situation. Later I withdrew the confession." A court threw out the charges, agreeing with the man that his confession to drunk driving was invalid because he was too drunk to make it. A defense like this would never fly in Saudi Arabia.
http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article.jhtml?articleID=594014