Articles Posted in Field Sobriety Tests

Police officers are always right… wrong! At Hoffman and Associates, our law firm has successfully defended thousands of driving under the influence cases. One of our effective strategies is to attack and challenge the credibility of the officers observations, statements and conclusions being used against our clients.

You may be unlucky enough to have been stopped by the police for allegedly committing a vehicle code violation, but it is not necessarily true. The main thrust of an officer’s education at the Academy is how to build a case against suspected violators. Officers are taught from the beginning that they must always justify and build a case.

One of the major areas of challenging the officers observations is to point out to the prosecutor, judge or jury, that although the officer will testify from the witness stand, or by the statements in police reports, that his credibility must be established like any other witness, despite the fact that he is a police officer.

The credibility or believability of an officer saw summations and statements should never be considered totally accurate or correct. It is essential that all statements declare fully scrutinized and challenge by her attorney in a DUI or other criminal case.

Very often when our attorneys are reviewing police reports with our clients, major and minor factual discrepancies appear with no rational explanation. Although it’s easy to assume that the clients, or person being charged with the offense is lying or fabricating to make themselves look better. There is often another reasonable explanation.

Although police officers are employed to protect and serve the community, and hold themselves out as neutral and unbiased people, that is not always the case. Police officers also have an agenda… that is to build a criminal case against a suspect who he has determined to be guilty.

The officer’s observations in the police reports that he completes after an arrest, are the basis for determining the relative strength or weakness of the state of California’s case against you.

In a driving under the influence arrest, the first critical element to evaluate is whether the officers had probable cause to stop you. In a DUI case, the more vehicle code violationssthe officers cite in their report create a stronger case for the prosecution. Vehicle code violations such as technical violations, like no license plates, or a tail light out although valid probable cause, create a weaker case for the prosecution.

Vehicle code violations like weaving, lane Straddling, or driving on the wrong side of the street, create a stronger case for the prosecution since they add a link for the prosecutor to build a case of a impaired driving.

Clients always asked me as part of our initial consultation subsequent to their DUI arrest, whether they did the right things. Immediately after a driver has been pulled over for a DUI the officer requests the driver to submit to and complete a series of coordination and balance tests, commonly calledsField Sobriety Tests. They get their name from the common location these tests are administeredswhich is usually not in a police station, but on the side of the road.

These tests are designed to provide police officers with screening information to determine the drivers level of impairmment. Common examples of these tests are walk the line… these tests, like other coordination tests given in DUI cases is first demonstrated and instructed by the officer prior to asking the driver to perform. This popular tests requires the driver to take a designated number of steps on a line or crack in the sidewalk and then duplicate that in the opposite direction. The officer looks for lack of the subject following specific instructions as well as lack of balance.

Another popular field sobriety tests is the nose touch test. This requires the driver to close his eyes tip his head back and touch alternating right and left index fingers to the tip of his nose. Reciting the alphabet, or countig 1-20 and then backwards are also popular.

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