Reader’s Question:

I often wonder how police officers in Anchorage, Alaska work, especially in a DUI arrest. Does police officer also make mistakes during a DUI stop?

Frida

Anchorage, AK

The straight answer would be yes, police officers in Anchorage, Alaska also make mistakes during a DUI stop or investigation. They actually have this “Training Manual” of rules that they should follow when they conduct field sobriety tests. Some DUI lawyers study this manual so they would know exactly what questions to ask the police officers to see if he completely followed the manual’s directions. This could be powerful evidence in a DUI case that is frequently overlooked by defense lawyers.

If the manual’s directions were not completely followed by the arresting officer, the validity of the tests can be attacked. A successful challenge often results in the exclusion of the test evidence at trial; and this would significantly weaken the prosecutor’s DUI case. There have already been reports that police officers do things inconsistent with the manual’s material and these have been found in extremely large number of DUI cases. Police officers also don’t always use objective scoring as explained in the manual. More often than not, officers just simply subjectively decide whether or not a person failed the tests.

Tags: DUI, DUI arrest, DUI lawyer, field sobriety tests