Stopped For A Routine Traffic Infraction . . .

  Utah DUI arrests are special  - one minute a person is driving fine, and the next, an officer is arresting on the basis of bogus, improperly administered "Standardized Field Sobriety Tests" (SFST). Police in Utah practice what is called "fishing" by pulling over as many cars as they can during late evening hours for minor (or imagined) traffic infractions, in the hope they will smell alcohol. Even though the smell of alcohol does not provide probable cause, since drinking and driving are legal (under .080, or not impaired), that person is now on their way to getting a DUI. This series of events, infraction, forced field tests, and an inaccurate intoxilyzer is precisely why you need a Utah DUI Attorney. Do NOT play into this game by pleading guilty just because you believe the evidence contains a number above .080.

 Arrested For Failing Bogus, and Voluntary

Standardized Field Sobriety Tests 

Those field "tests" that you performed on the roadside, while traffic zipped by and strobe lights flashed were completely voluntary, although the police didn't make them seem that way did they? How standing on one leg relates to driving is still completely unexplained, as is the fact not only that the majority of police incorrectly administer SFST's, but none of these tests have ever been tested on a sober control group. The eye test for example (HGN) cannot be performed when there are any flashing lights, or traffic, and "fatigue" nystagmus occurs in better than 50% of the sober adult population after twelve hours of waking. Miss a single heel to toe step by more than half an inch and step off the completely imaginary line and you have "failed" the Walk and Turn test; a 97% score fails the test. As a Utah DUI Attorney, I am certified at the Instructor level in SFST's and will discover how the officer failed in the administration and scoring of the tests.          For More Information on Standardized Field Sobriety Tests .

Placing Your Fate In The Most Inaccurate Intoxilyzer Ever Manufactured

If the "voluntary" Standardized Field Sobriety Tests weren't enough to make you mad, news about the machine they used to measure your breath alcohol level will send you over the top. The CMI Intoxilyzer 5000 and 8000 have been rejected by many state DUI enforcement departments because of false positives, inaccuracies, and non-specificity for alcohol. Simply put, you get what you pay for, with the 5000 standing for the fact that the machine costs $5000, and the 8000, $8,000; with more accurate machines costing more than twice as much. There is so much to say about these machines, we've devoted an entire section to it, linked below; but suffice to say, that using a single breath sample to fix a subject's BAC on one of these machines, is a practice only performed in Utah - no other state in the nation uses as few filters for specificity (so it measures just alcohol) with a single blow. The one thing that can be said with certainty about the BAC the machine reported? That the number printed was NOT your actual BAC.  As one of two Utah DUI Lawyers who actually owns a CMI Intoxilyzer 5000, I know the machine better than the police who are charged with using it. And I can make any number appear on it with Listerine or even Wonderbread.                                                          

For More Information On Intoxilyzers click here.