You have been pulled over for a driving infraction and the officer asks if you have been drinking. You were already nervous from being pulled over; now you are terrified. You can't focus. Your tired from working a long shift that day. Maybe your not feeling well. You become dizzy and now your are asked to take a field sobriety test. When you get out of the car you remember that you have balance problems in general. You have heard that police often have you walk a straight line as part of the field sobriety test. Will your balance problems hurt you now? What if you fail the test even though you were not drinking. What if you drank very little? How do you fight a test in Court?
DUI field sobriety tests usually involve balance and coordination, which many of us do not have under normal circumstances. However, the circumstances during a DUI investigation are often so stressful and distracting that it is nearly impossible to complete any field sobriety tests. Some of these field sobriety tests have no standards of administration that police follow. Tests, such as the alphabet recitation test, finger-to-nose test, finger-touch test, and sway test, have no known measure of validity. Tests, referred to as “standardized field sobriety tests,” have been studied and issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as the so-called gold standard for DUI field sobriety testing. NHTSA requires that specific rules must be followed in order for the results of these field sobriety tests to be reliable.
There are only three standardized field sobriety tests – one-leg stand, walk-and-turn, and horizontal gaze nystagmus (an eye test referred to as HGN). In Pennsylvania, the courts have determined that the results of the HGN test cannot be used as evidence. Furthermore, government sponsored studies claim that, the HGN test is accurate 77% of the time, the one-leg stand field sobriety test is only 65% accurate, the walk and turn test is 68% accurate and when all three are used together they are correct 82% of the time when deciding if someone should be arrested for drunk driving. That means the police are wrong 18% of the time when using these three tests. Using just the walk-and-turn field sobriety test the police are wrong 32% of the time!
Moreover, there are factors that further compromise the validity of these field sobriety tests. Certain medical conditions and physical injuries will render these so-called DUI tests invalid. If a person is 50 pounds overweight or is 65 years or older, then the results of the these DUI tests are invalid.
It is important that your attorney knows the standards that should have been used by the investigating police officer when administering these field sobriety tests. Attorney Craig Penglase has handled over a thousand DUI's as a Prosecutor and over a thousand as a defense attorney. He knows the tests used and how to find the weaknesses in the procedures used to help show if they have been unfairly used against you. Speak to an experienced attorney as soon as you have been pulled over and tested to find out if you have grounds for challenging these flawed tests and procedures.
Last year was a bad year for DUI crashes in Pennsylvania. According to state police, troopers responded to more than 5,100 DUI-related accidents in 2017, a 14 percent jump from the previous year.
There’s change in the air when it comes to Pennsylvania marijuana laws and drug crimes. Earlier this month, the state began allowing people with medical marijuana cards to buy marijuana in dry leaf f
By now you might have read the story of Tasha Lynn Schleicher, whom police have described as “one of the worst DUI offenders in the United States.” Earlier this month, Schleicher, of Minnesota, was a
Spend time traveling between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, you’ll start to notice little differences, on everything from gas pumps to state government. Another key difference: DUI laws.
The term “parole” dates back to the Medieval era, and comes from the French word for “speech,” although a more exact meaning is “word of honor.” Long before the modern criminal law system came into b
The phrase “tough on crime” means different things in different parts of the world. For example: In the United States, the federal sentence for most first offense drug possession charges is less than
DUI enforcement in Pennsylvania entered unchartered territory this summer with the arrival of what’s known as the “ignition interlock law.” The law, which went into effect in August, affects both lic
Roughly 1/3 of all people arrested for driving while under the influence will go on to re-offend, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. To combat this problem, lawmakers around the coun
As Bucks County attorneys who have witnessed the consequences of being tangled up in the Pennsylvania legal system, we can say with absolute sincerity that we hope you never find yourself being arrest
If you’ve spent any time on Bucks County’s roadways in the past few years, you’ve probably seen the billboards: “Buzzed driving is drunk driving.” The message is clear: “I wasn’t that drunk” isn’t a
© Penglase & Benson, Inc.
