Law Offices of Lawrence TaylorDrunk Driving Detection and Field Sobriety Tests415-496-2034
There are around a dozen “field sobriety tests” (or FSTs) used by officers in the field. The most common of these tests are:
- One-leg-stand
- Nystagmus (the officer asks you to follow a pencil or his finger by only moving your eyes)
- Walk-and-turn
- Touching finger-to-nose
- Rapidly touching four fingers to the thumb
- The “modified position of attention" test
- Reciting the alphabet
- The rapidly alternating hand pat
Unknown to the general public, FSTs are not mandatory by law. You may, in fact, decline to take them. In a DUI case, if the DUI lawyer is representing a client that did choose to take the FSTs, however, he can easily prove that these tests are “designed for failure”.
Recently, studies have been done on the accuracy of these tests, funded by the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The results of the research: only three of these tests are accurate and effective in detecting intoxication. These tests are: one-leg-stand, walk-and-turn, and nystagmus. Any FST besides these three were deemed inaccurate and unreliable, and therefore should no longer be used. Since this research was published, police agencies throughout the U.S. have begun to adopt a battery of the so-called “standardized field sobriety tests”. Unfortunately, however, many law enforcement agencies in California have refused to follow suit. Not adopting this battery gives them the freedom of a few key points:
- They can avoid being held to federal standards of administering the three tests.
- The can also avoid using objective scoring in which the scoring is done by a system rather than the officer’s better judgment.
- The can continue to administer the field sobriety tests they prefer.
A “Preliminary Alcohol Screening” device, or a PAS, is a machine being used more often by California law enforcement agencies, include the California Highway Patrol, in the field each day. The PAS is a device that was originally created as a field sobriety test to help the officer in deciding if there is probable cause to make an arrest. The PAS has also more recently evolved into the EPAS (or Evidential Portable Alcohol System), a more sophisticated technology that is meant to overcome legal objections to admissibility in evidence. The problem with both versions of primitive technology is that judges in California are allowing prosecutors to use the results as evidence in trial. In some cases, this is the only blood-alcohol evidence in the case. (Note: Unless you are under the age of 21, or are already under arrest and the PAS is the only chemical test available, this test is not legally required as with other field sobriety tests.)
