DUI Defender

“Stand over here, touch your nose, walk this line, follow this pen”. These are part of the instructions given to people who are stopped and suspected of driving under the influence. But what are they and what do they mean? The short answer is not nearly as much as people believe, and then only in specific situations.

It all started in the 1970’s. The federal government wanted to know if the various tests, literally hundreds, used by all of the law enforcement in America, had any validity and if some were better than others. In typical governmental fashion, a contract was awarded to the Southern California Research Institute, a study was commenced and eventually reports issued. The bottom line was that 3 tests, Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, Walk and Turn and the One Leg Stand were deemed to be relatively reliable in assessing whether a person COULD be under the influence of alcohol.

THIS BECAME THE FIRST ISSUE WITH THE RESULTS. THE TESTS WERE TO DETERMINE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL, NOT IMPAIRMENT. There is a difference. The tests were designed to assist officers in the arrest or release decision. Not as proof of any underlying crime.

In fact, Dr. Marceline Burns, the person who ran this project, and known as the ‘godmother’ of SFST’s has made this absolutely clear in numerous court proceedings and statements “What you are asking is, are these tests of driving? They are not”. Nor can these tests be used to correlate to a specific blood alcohol level. This was discussed in the case of United States v. Horn.

So, despite what you may have heard, read or been told, any and or all of the field sobriety tests do not measure your alcohol level or the ability to drive a car. They just give the officer a “predictive power” of an elevated alcohol level.

Of course how accurate this predictive power may be depends on the officer, the situation and the use of statistics. Research has shown that under the best conditions with the best officers this predictive power never exceeds about 80%. Clearly not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Perhaps the biggest factor is the administration and interpretation of the tests. There are very specific guidelines on how to give a test and how to measure performance. So specific are these that officers MUST be trained to understand that varying from the standardized methods INVALIDATES the results. Again, this was said by Dr. Burns and appears in every training manual and at every training class on field sobriety tests.

So before you think that performance on a field test means a person is dui, ask yourself if the test was done correctly, was it interpreted correctly and was the result scored correctly. Then, and only then, give it the weight and value it was designed for, an arrest should be made. Not that the person is dui or has a specific alcohol level.

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