RondonProcter558
Aus Salespoint
In the course of a dui investigation, police officers will often administer some so-called "field sobriety tests" (FSTs). This may include a battery of 3 to 5 tests, usually selected by the officer; these may 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. Within an increasing amount 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 they must be scored objectively as opposed to having 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 best 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 research 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 whether the suspects had "had too much to drink to drive. " Unknown 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. In other words, 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).
Think about the new, improved "standardized" DUI tests? Research funded by the National Highway Traffic Administration determined that the three most reliable 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 discovered that 47% of the subjects who would have been arrested based upon test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of less than the legal limit. Put simply, almost 1 / 2 of all persons "failing" the tests are not legally under the influence of alcohol!
According to the Orange County DUI Attorneyattorneys in Mr. Taylor's Southern California lawyer, the fact that these tests are largely unfamiliar to most people, and that they get under extremely adverse conditions, make sure they are more challenging for folks to perform. Merely two miscues in performance can lead to a person being classified as "impaired" because of alcohol consumption when the problem could possibly function as the consequence of unfamiliarity with the test.
