RagerGallaway450

For the duration of a drunk driving investigation, police officers will usually administer a series of alleged "field sobriety tests" (FSTs). This could consist of a battery of three to five tests, usually 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 an increasing number of law enforcement agencies in DUI Lawyer Orange County, California and throughout the nation, a "standardized" battery of three tests will be given - walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand and nystagmus - and so they must be scored objectively instead of utilizing an officer's subjective opinion.

How valid are these FSTs? Not to, according to DUI Lawyer Orange County CA Taylor, a former prosecutor and the author of the leading legal textbook "Drunk Driving Defense, 6th edition". The tests are ostensibly "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 police officers and asked them to decide if the suspects had "had a lot to drink to operate a vehicle. " Unknown to the officers, the blood-alcohol concentration of each of the 21 subjects was. 00%. The outcomes: 46% of that time period the officers gave their opinion that the subject was too inebriated to operate a vehicle. Put simply, the FSTs were scarcely more accurate at predicting intoxication than flipping a coin. Cole and Nowaczyk, "Field Sobriety Tests: Are They Designed for Failure? ", 79 Perceptual and Motor Skills 99 (1994).

What about the 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 found that 47% of the subjects who would have now been arrested based on test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of less than the legal limit. In other words, almost half all persons "failing" the tests weren't legally under the influence of alcohol!

According to the Orange County DUI Attorneysolicitors in Mr. Taylor's Southern California lawyer, the truth that these tests are largely unfamiliar to many people, and they are given under acutely adverse conditions, make them harder for individuals to perform. Only two miscues in performance can result in someone being classified as "impaired" due to alcohol consumption once the problem could possibly function as results of unfamiliarity with the test.