The Officer's Approach
Posted on Aug 27, 2011 5:25am PDT
As a recent blog post noted, if the prosecution is emphasizing facts which (allegedly) point towards guilt, common sense says the defense should be emphasizing the facts which point towards innocence. Yet in a DUI trial, this is often overlooked; the defense attorney focuses so much on undermining the prosecution's evidence that defense evidence can be ignored. One classic example is the Stopping Sequence, discussed earlier. Another is the officer's approach to the vehicle.
The DWI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing Manual ("the Manual") is published by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). It is the bible of police training for DUI investigations. All officer training is from or based upon the Manual; all officers know that, and they all know it is authoritative (although occasionally--especially in rural counties--you will find one who tries to lie and claim, "I've never heard of it."). The Manual indicates that the officer should continue to carefully observe the driver during the officer's approach to the vehicle. Of course, officer safety provides another powerful motive for the cop to carefully observe the driver while approaching the vehicle. So the officer cannot get away with claiming not to have noticed things during this phase of the investigation.
An experienced Phoenix DUI attorney will use this to your advantage, asking such questions as "Was the driver slumped over the wheel? Was the driver leaning over? Wearing a seatbelt? Were the brake lights off (indicating the car was placed in park as it should have been)? Was the driver staring straight ahead, or was the driver instead observing your approach?"
If you are facing DUI charges, you should contact us right away. We can help.