Atlanta DUI Attorney

Defending DUI Cases Involving Field Sobriety Tests

Unlike the state-administered blood, breath, or urine test (at the police station or hospital, not on the side of the road), you are not required to submit to field sobriety tests. Very often the police will still ask for a chemical test of your blood, breath, or urine even after refusing to submit to field sobriety tests. These field sobriety tests have serious problems insofar as their accuracy and validity. Many times the evidence used to determine the probable cause to arrest you is severely compromised. Many people simply cannot do the field sobriety tests, even completely sober. The tests have been designed to cause you to fail, in order to create evidence against you.

The "scoring" in the field sobriety tests are subjective. The results are frequently misinterpreted. The tests are often improperly administered. As a result, it is often a bad idea to agree to the testing. The police officer has already decided you are DUI long before you submit to the testing. Everything the officer does after first suspecting you are DUI is designed to get a conviction in your case.

Attorney Richard S. Lawson has been trained by the same people who have trained the police officers who arrested you. He has been a certified (NHTSA) field sobriety testing instructor since the year 2000. Through the training he has received he knows how to exploit the flaws in the administration and scoring of these tests. He also knows that even the test proven most accurate by the NHTSA (National Highway Transportation Safety Administration) is only 77% accurate. However, law enforcement in Fulton County are still using these tests to get evidence of intoxication as probable cause for arrest. If you have been subjected to field sobriety tests and were subsequently arrested, contact an Atlanta DUI lawyer.

DUI Lawyer in Fulton County

Even if you refuse to submit to field sobriety tests, you are required by law to take the chemical test if you are asked to do so. If you refuse to take the chemical test, you will almost always have your license suspended for a year as penalty. If you refuse to submit to field sobriety testing, you will not suffer the same consequence. However, they are often used at sobriety checkpoints as well as when you have been pulled over due to some suspicious driving behavior. Law enforcement must have “probable cause “ in order to pull you over, unless you are stopped at a sobriety checkpoint. They may ask you to perform the tests to get further evidence so that they have probable cause to arrest you for DUI. If you have submitted to these tests as part of a DUI arrest, it is important that you contact the Law Offices of Richard S. Lawson to insure that your rights are protected.

Contact an Atlanta DUI defense lawyer from the firm if you've been arrested for DUI and part of the process included field sobriety testing.