A DUI Arrest: The Typical Sequence of Events

(The content below was transcribed from an interview done with Acacia Law. We think you'll find it much easier
and more enjoyable to read this way.)

Interviewer: Let’s go through from the moment someone is pulled over, through their arrest and their initial time getting out of jail or appearing before a judge, what are the sequences of events that will happen? What will they go through?

Being Stopped by Law Enforcement

Acacia Law: It is variable but normally what happens is a police officer may be making observations of how a person is driving a vehicle. Depending on the nature of their role, most departments have officers who are specifically trained in DUI enforcement. They’re the types of officers that frequent bars, restaurants where there’s alcohol served. They know the closing times, they know the times when people are most likely to be drinking alcohol and driving.

Literally, what they’re looking for is any sort of basis, even tiny basis like weaving within their own lane which everybody does while they’re driving, as an excuse to stop them. Then they do their investigation. At this point they’re not arresting anybody; they’re simply asking questions. They want to know if you’ve been drinking, they want to see if they can smell alcohol on your breath, they want to see if they can see “bloodshot and watery eyes” which, by the way, can be caused by any number of things that have nothing to do with alcohol whatsoever.

On top of that, they have the ability to start asking some preliminary questions. They’ll get a driver’s license, registration, insurance and the whole time they’re observing how the person obtains these items. Are they fumbling with them? I’ve read these reports so many times and they all say the same things: the person was fumbling. I fumble for my driver’s license and my registration and insurance. I go poring through my glove compartment. These are not items I use everyday.

Behaviour Characteristics That Police Look for to Determine if You Have Been Drinking

Interviewer: Since you’ve seen a lot of police reports, quote me a lot of the language you’ve seen in the police reports because I’m sure this will jog people’s memories.

Acacia Law: “Moderate to strong odor of alcohol on breath. Swaying slightly or heavily.” Sometimes they’ll even put “two to three inches in each direction.” They’ll put “bloodshot and watery eyes”. Possibly slurred speech. Possible mood changes. Then they’ll list the field sobriety test. They’ll say something like, “Poor FST” which is poor field sobriety test, which are all subjective and arbitrary anyway.

Then they’ll say “admission to consumption of alcohol.” If they write anything that is incriminating such as, “I shouldn’t have been driving,” or something like that because people get apologetic. Some drivers think maybe they can talk their way out of it. Anything like that, they just put in quotes and put in on the forms. Those are the types of things I see regularly. Those are the most common observations I see.

Interviewer: Continuing on, they’ve stopped them and asked them for all their credentials. What will happen next?

Acacia Law: They’ll ask them to step out of the car. Again, here you go, standard and stupid responses that I’ve seen written on forms: “Held onto door when getting out of car.” Hell, I always grab the door when I stand up out of my car. Always. I don’t know of any time when I haven’t. It’s just instinctive on my part. “Leaning up against the vehicle,” as if they can’t hold themselves up. I always lean up against my vehicle because I’m just lazy. In other words, I don’t feel like standing at attention.

What it looks like though, the way it’s written and presented to suggest that the person had to hold onto the car door just to get out of the vehicle. Even if they do it every day of their lives, now it’s being used to establish that they’re impaired. In conjunction with that, leaning up against the car, it suggests that they can’t stand up without having this car hold them up.

Field Sobriety Tests

Then they look for staggering, slurring speech, bloodshot, watery eyes. They go through the whole litany again. Then they run them through the field sobriety test, they have these little check boxes. Again, you’re not going to pass these things because there’s no way to pass them.

Interviewer: What are the standard field sobriety tests they use in Arizona? Do they use walk and turn? What do they use normally?

Acacia Law: They have about five or six. One’s called an ‘HGN’ which is Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test, which is a very subjective test. A police officer has someone follow either a pen or some sort of stick, to follow it with his or her eyes, left to right. They’re supposed to see stuttering in their eyes out to a 45-degree angle. Can you imagine how subjective this test is? They don’t have protractors. You’re taking the officer’s word about shaky eyeballs. It doesn’t make any sense.

Interviewer: They’ll say like, follow my finger and if your eyeballs jerk once they get to about 45 degrees then that means you’re impaired?

Acacia Law: Exactly. Yes. Then they have the walk and turn, which I believe is 12 steps out or 12 steps or 9 steps out and 9 steps back. Then they have what’s called a Romberg modified where I believe you stand at attention and hold your head up and just stand there for 60 seconds and they see if you sway in any direction. They have another one called the finger-to-nose test where again you stand at attention and hold your arms out and touch the tip of your finger to your nose left-to-right, whatever the officer says.

Then you also have the one leg stand where you stand on one leg and count or recite the alphabet backwards or forwards. It really doesn’t matter; it’s up to the officer. Those are predominantly most of the tests I see. There could be others depending up on the particular officer.

Do these tests mean anything? Not to me. I go through these tests with the jurors; I show them what it is they can be marked off on because you could be marked off on something for the stupidest things you could possibly imagine. As I said, the tests are designed to be failed.