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In the course of a driving while intoxicated investigation, cops will usually administer some so-called "field sobriety tests" (FSTs). This may contain a battery of three to five tests, often selected by the officer; these can 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 a increasing number of law enforcement agencies in DUI Lawyer Orange County, California and across the nation, a "standardized" battery of three tests will be given - walk-and-turn, one-leg-stand and nystagmus - and so they must certanly be scored objectively as opposed to using an officer's subjective opinion.
How valid are these FSTs? Not very, based on DUI Lawyer Orange County CA Taylor, a former prosecutor and the composer of the leading legal textbook "Drunk Driving Defense, 6th edition". The tests are basically "designed for failure". In 1991, Taylor reports, Doctor 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 too much to drink to drive. " Unknown to the officers, the blood-alcohol concentration of each of the 21 subjects was. 00%. The results: 46% of times the officers gave their opinion that the subject was too inebriated to drive. In other words, the FSTs were hardly 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 unearthed that 47% of the subjects who does have been arrested based upon test performance actually had blood-alcohol concentrations of less than the legal limit. In other words, very nearly half of all persons "failing" the tests are not legally consuming alcohol!
According to the Orange County DUI Attorneylawyers in Mr. Taylor's Southern California law firm, the truth that these tests are largely unfamiliar to the majority of people, and that they get under excessively desperate situations, cause them to become more difficult for people to execute. Merely two miscues in performance can result in someone being classified as "impaired" because of alcohol consumption once the problem may actually function as the results of unfamiliarity with the test.
