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Polinske & Associates, P.C.

When a person is stopped for suspicion of DUI should they submit to a request to perform field tests?

Brian L. Polinske
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Edwardsville Criminal Defense Trial Lawyer

The answer is no.  Field sobriety tests consist mainly of three separate tests: Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus, One Leg Stand and the Walk and Turn test.  Sometimes the convergence test, alphabet test, and coin test may be administered by the police.  All of these "tests" are really not tests.  They are already geared for failure.  When these tests were developed in the 1970s by the NHTSA the legal limit was .10 mg/dl.  All the tests established far less than 100% success when non-drinking persons attempted the tests.  This is proof alone that the tests have incorporated in them a failure rate.  Even for those persons who have not consumed alcohol.  The three main tests are only about 70% favorable.  If a person is 65 years of age or older there is no statistical basis to administer the tests.  That age group has not had their performance measured scientifically.  Normally, we can get the state to agree if a client is in that age bracket that the tests and their results will not be taken into account when determining intoxication. 

There is no legal requirement to participate in the field tests.  The best response is a police "no thank you" to the officer asking you to perform them.  

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