4th Amendment holds in a case of mooning, alcohol
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Posted: 2:20 PM- LOGAN -- A judge threw out a drunken-driving charge in a case that involved bare bottoms and a defiant step on the gas.

Police stopped Nicholas Johnson, 22, after he revved his pickup truck in response to friends who mooned him at a traffic stop.

An officer smelled alcohol and arrested Johnson, who had a blood-alcohol level of 0.13 percent, above Utah's legal threshold.

But defense attorney Glen Neeley claimed the officer had no probable cause to stop the pickup truck last September in North Logan. First District Judge Clint Judkins agreed.

"We're not a police state yet," Judkins said Wednesday. "Revving your engine is not illegal.

"This has to be looked at through two windows. The first being that the police officer was on the street simply doing his job, the other is a person's Fourth Amendment right," the judge said, referring to an unreasonable search.

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