Judge Acquits Drunk Driver Because He's Asian
A judge dropped drunk driving charges against an Asian man last week in part because "different ethnic groups react differently to alcohol intake."
The 63-year-old Swedish man, who is of Asian origin, was charged with drunk driving after a gas station attendant thought he was acting intoxicated while filling his car. Police tracked the man to his home and found that he had a BAC of 0.164, more than eight times over Sweden's absurdly low limit of 0.02.
In addition to noting the differences in alcohol processing by ethnicity, the judge admitted that he could not prove the man didn't become drunk while he was home before police arrived, during which time a friend testified that he had seen the man drink one shot of whiskey.
'I read on the internet that [alcohol processing] differs between different kinds of people," the judge told Swedish paper Nerikies Allehanda. "Native Americans and Asians have a completely different metabolism and way of processing alcohol than western Europeans."
