Challenging Field Sobriety Tests in Texas DWI Defense
Field sobriety testing is the exercise that a stopped driver goes through at the request of a police officer investigating a possible drunk driving offense. A field sobriety test serves several different purposes. Mainly, it develops the officer's probable cause to suspect DWI or DUI, which leads to an arrest and a blood alcohol test. Without probable cause, your defense attorney can attack the arrest itself on constitutional grounds.
A field sobriety test can also be used to support conviction of DUI in refusal cases or when the blood or breath test results are shown to be unreliable. If you could benefit from the advice of a lawyer who understands the right and wrong ways to test a driver's sobriety in the field, contact the Law Office of Lane D. Thibodeaux in Bryan or College Station for a free consultation.
There are a lot of ways to challenge a field sobriety test. Only a very few tests are recognized by the National Transportation Safety Administration as reliable, and police officers don't always direct drivers to perform tests from this short list. Some drivers shouldn't be given field sobriety tests at all, and certain conditions of terrain or weather make the task of walking a line or following a light more difficult than they normally are. To illustrate how scoring of field sobriety testing can work aganist a defendant, Mr. Thibodeaux has created a satirical but intructive five minute animated video at the following URL link: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/12148203/the-truth-about-standardized-field-sobriety-tests
The arresting officer will record the results of the field sobriety tests in the police report, together with observations about the smell of alcohol, slurred speech, or other indications of drunkenness. With 25 years of criminal defense experience, Lane Thibodeaux knows how to read between the lines of police reports and can often obtain important information about these observations at the administrative license revocation hearing at an early stage of the case.
For example, we can find out what the officer observed that would tend to indicate that the driver was not intoxicated — this information doesn't generally find its way into the report. Mr. Thibodeaux's experience with cross-examination of arresting officers can by itself represent an important advantage in DWI or DUI defense.
Find out more about our ability to use mistakes or omissions in field sobriety testing or police reports to our clients' benefit. Contact the Law Office of Lane D. Thibodeaux for a free consultation.
