If your stopped by the Lubbock Police or another police agency in Texas and the officer believes your intoxicated he or she will most likely conduct a "field sobriety test" or series of such tests. The three tests used the most are called the HGN (Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus), Walk and Turn and One Leg Stand. What do these tests evaluate? Can an officer tell if the person has lost the normal use of his or her mental faculties from these tests? In today's question I discuss some of the problems commonly associated with these balance and dexterity tests.
Hello. I'm Steven Hamilton, Board Certified Criminal Defense Attorney, practicing in Lubbock, Texas in the South Plains. Today's video clip on DWI is what are some of the concerns of these field sobriety tests that you took or that your loved one took when he was arrested for a DWI?
Field sobriety tests basically are three things that you will see that the officer does, and they call them standardized field sobriety tests. Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus or what we call the HGN, and that's basically where the officer is just checking your eye and looking for a twitch. A Walk & Turn test where they give you a series of instructions, put your hands down by your side, put your left foot on the line, your right foot in front of it, remain in that position until I tell you to begin. And then they explain how they want you to do this heel to toe test, how to make a special turn. And then the last one the One Leg Stand. Again, hands down by your side, raise your foot six inches off again ground, hold it there.
If you did those tests and you were arrested, there are some concerns of those tests. In other words, the first thing is what do they really mean? Most of the time when you're arrested on the side of the road under Texas law, they arresting you because they're saying you're intoxicated. That definition on the side of the road-- now think about it. They don't have a breath tester out there, a legal breath tester. They didn't give you an intoxilyzer or a blood sample. So they're talking about that you've lost the normal use of your mental or physical faculty. And they're using these three field sobriety tests to say that that's correct.
The problem is there's no validation for that. There's no study, there's no peer review that says that that's true. In fact, there's not a single bit of documentation in the scientific community that says that if I have a twitching of the eye, I have an stigma, this twitching of the eye, that I've lost the normal use of my mental or physical faculty. Same thing with the Walk & Turn and the One Leg Stand. So that's one of the concerns that we have. If you're going to say that a test means something then you've got to be able to back it up. You've got to show the data, and it doesn't exist. That's one of the things that we're going to look at, I'm going to look at, when you come in to see me. What did you do on the field sobriety tests?
The other issues are there are reasons that people don't look good on balance and dexterity tests that have absolutely nothing to do with intoxication. I mean think about it. You're doing a balance and dexterity test, a Walk & Turn, a One Leg Stand. Typically it's late at night or early in the morning. It's dark outside, it may be cold, it could be windy. I've seen people do field sobriety testing in the snow, for heaven sakes. You're nervous. You're thinking, oh, my goodness. If I'm not perfect on this thing I'm going to jail. The officer thinks that I've been drinking, so I've got to try to prove to him that I'm OK.
Now, those things can affect your mental faculties and how it is that you're doing those tests. There are a lot of other things that'll affect it. Certainly physical conditions. If you have bad knees or bad backs or ankles, if you have diabetes. There are a lot of things that we need to look at.
One of the things that I do when you come in the office is I want to talk to you about your medical conditions. We need to know immediately do we need to be looking that sending you to a doctor, do we need to be looking at getting medical reports, copies of issues that you've had in the past. Do we want to send you for an MRI. All those things we've got to discuss, and we've got to look in your case specific.
What we do is not cookie-cutter law. It's not what works for one person works for somebody else. And I don't really know what might help you until you pick up that phone, you call me, you come in and see me. We'd be glad to visit with you. Looking forward to talking to you.
My name is Stephen Hamilton. My phone number is 806-794-0394. Pick up the phone, call me today. Have a great day. Thank you.
