LizaChartier231
De MobileCells
In the course of a driving while intoxicated investigation, police will usually administer a series of so-called "field sobriety tests" (FSTs). This may contain a battery of three to five tests, often selected by the officer; these can sometimes include walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand, horizontal gaze nystagmus, fingers-to-thumb, finger-to-nose, Rhomberg (modified position of attention), alphabet recitation, or hand-pat. In a increasing number of police force agencies in DUI Lawyer Orange County, California and over the nation, a "standardized" battery of three tests is going to be given - walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand and nystagmus - and so they must certanly be scored objectively as opposed to utilizing an officer's subjective opinion.
How valid are these FSTs? Not so, according to DUI Lawyer Orange County CA Taylor, a former prosecutor and the writer of the key legal textbook "Drunk Driving Defense, 6th edition". The tests are basically "designed for failure". In 1991, Taylor reports, Dr . Spurgeon Cole of Clemson University conducted a study on the accuracy of field sobriety tests. His staff videotaped 21 individuals performing 6 common field sobriety tests, then showed the tapes to 14 cops and asked them to decide if the suspects had "had a great deal to drink to operate a vehicle. " Not known to the officers, the blood-alcohol concentration of each and every of the 21 subjects was. 00%. The results: 46% of the time the officers gave their opinion that the subject was too inebriated to drive. Put simply, the FSTs were scarcely more accurate at predicting intoxication than flipping a coin. Cole and Nowaczyk, "Field Sobriety Tests: Are They Created for Failure? ", 79 Perceptual and Motor Skills 99 (1994).
What about the brand new, improved "standardized" DUI tests? Research funded by the National Highway Traffic Administration determined that the three most effective field sobriety tests were walk-and-turn, one-leg stand, and horizontal gaze nystagmus. Yet, even using these supposedly more accurate -- and objectively scored -- tests, the researchers unearthed that 47% of the subjects who would have been arrested based on test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of significantly less than the legal limit. Quite simply, almost half of all persons "failing" the tests were not legally consuming alcohol!
In line with the Orange County DUI Attorneylawyers in Mr. Taylor's Southern California attorney, the truth that these tests are largely unfamiliar to most people, and that they are given under extremely adverse conditions, make them harder for folks to perform. As few as two miscues in performance may result in someone being classified as "impaired" because of alcohol consumption when the problem could possibly function as the consequence of unfamiliarity with the test.
