Answer:
In a DUI case, the government loves to come up with all these fancy terms for everything. One of them that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, that we’ve all heard, is the roadside gymnastics that DUI attorneys that are well-trained call them, because that’s what they are, 100% voluntary, strictly probable cause to arrest.
In a DUI case, the government loves to come up with all these fancy terms for everything. One of them that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, that we’ve all heard, is the roadside gymnastics that DUI attorneys that are well-trained call them, because that’s what they are, 100% voluntary, strictly probable cause to arrest.
Stick the one leg in the air, do the heel to toe, follow the pen with your eyes. This one is called the horizontal gaze nystagmus, and what the theory behind it is, when you’re under the influence of alcohol, as you become more and more under the influence, a completely sober person, your eyes are going to move side to side in a very smooth process.
If you’re under the influence of alcohol, they will jut. An involuntary jerking of the eye as you follow the pen.
That is called nystagmus, horizontal gaze nystagmus. They’re taught and trained at the academy.
There’s exact protocols in the administration of this. As a qualified instructor on standardized field sobriety testing, I know the insides and out of that and have for 27 years.
Far more often than not, they do not follow the proper protocol in the administration of this roadside test to begin with. Number two, even if they do follow the pen, it’s strictly probable cause to arrest.
Drunk people pass them, sober people fail them. But they love to say, “He failed the horizontal gaze nystagmus.”
My God. An experienced DUI attorney’s going to know exactly what that means and how to pick it apart.
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