Field Sobriety Tests
Lakeland DUI Attorney
Breath tests are used in our state to determine if a person is legally intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle. Before a police officer asks you to take this test, he or she must place you under arrest for
DUI. Commonly, arrests rely on field sobriety tests which are given by the arresting officer to find out if, in the officer's opinion, you exhibit signs of intoxication. These tests have known flaws which can, in many instances, be exploited by a well-versed
Polk County criminal defense attorney to combat the grounds on which you were arrested.
If the tests can be shown to be improperly administered or the results unreliable, the case against you may be considerably weakened. When you use William D. Sites, Attorney at Law, you retain a lawyer who is experienced in locating and exposing the inaccuracy of field sobriety tests. This may prove to be invaluable at your DMV hearing on license suspension and in the criminal case against you.
Problems with Field Sobriety Tests
The field sobriety tests which are frequently given are:
- The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) is an eye test designed to find out if a person's eyes jerk involuntarily as a result of intoxication. This test asks for a non-medical person to make a medical determination and if the test is not witnessed by another no one will ever know what a police officer saw.
- The one leg stand test requires a driver to stand on one leg, with their arms at their sides, for a specified amount of time. The results depend wholly on the subjective opinion of a police officer and do not take into account physical or environmental circumstances that make this test hard for some people to do.
- In the walk and turn test a person is made to walk in a straight line, heal-to-toe for a distance and then told to turn 180 degrees and walk back in the same way. Many individuals may find this test difficult to do in a sober condition, let alone under the stress of being stopped by the police.
The inherent flaws in these tests have even prompted the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to state that they are not close to 100% accurate.
If your arrest for DUI was based on field sobriety testing, please contact a Polk County DUI lawyer for effective challenges to the results.