Austin DWI Lawyer & Attorney : Jamie Spencer Law Firm : Serving Travis, Williamson and Hays County

Police in New York State have admitted to arresting and charging drivers with any alcohol on their breath, although the law only criminalizes impaired driving. Well, that’s my DWI defense lawyer take on the story, but you tell me:         

"If you're going to drink, do it at home, designate a driver or hire a taxi. We're not saying there's anything wrong with drinking - just drinking and driving," said state police Lt. Douglas Larkin of Troop K in Westchester…

Once the driver rolls down the window, (the officer) said, it's easy to tell if he or she has been drinking.

"The first thing that hits you is the odor of alcohol -it's so obvious," he said. "I've had a few drivers who know they've been drinking and try to play it down, but the odor on their breath gives them away."

“Drinking and driving.” And having alcohol on your breath. These are the main standards it appears that police use to make an arrest for DWI.

But the law itself doesn’t say having a detectable odor of alcohol on your breath and operating a motor vehicle is illegal (unless you are under 21 – then it’s a DUI in Texas). Driving while having lost the normal use of your mental or physical faculties, due to the introduction of alcohol, a controlled substance, etc., is illegal.

On a side note, I’ll add this: I advise friends and family, and anyone else who asks, that in Austin, DWI arrests are made using this same standard.

If you are pulled over for a traffic violation in Austin, Texas, and the police officer smells the odor of an alcoholic beverage on your breath, you are very likely going to jail for DWI. I have heard testimony from Austin Police Department DWI Task Force officers that is substantively the same as what is quoted above.

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The primary student manual “DWI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing” published in February 2006 by NHTSA spends less than half a page on its subsection “Visual Detection of DWI Motorcyclists”. It’s in Chapter 5, Phase One “Vehicle in Motion” immediately after the section on visual cue descriptions for auto motorists.

However, in March of 2005 NHTSA published a brochure on the subject entitled “The Detection of DWI Motorcyclists”.

From both sources, the list of driving cues that officers are trained to look for in Motorcycle DWI/DUI cases are listed as either excellent (above 50% chance) or good (30-50% chance):

Excellent Cues

• Drifting during turn or curve
• Trouble with dismount
• Trouble with balance at stop
• Turning problems
• Inattentive to surroundings
• Inappropriate or unusual behavior
• Weaving

Good Cues

• Erratic movements while going straight
• Operating without lights at night
• Recklessness
• Following too closely
• Running stop light or sign
• Evasion
• Wrong way

Good fodder for DWI lawyers in motorcycle cases where the defendant is stopped ‘only’ for speeding (which is pretty common)…page 5 of the brochure:

Motorcyclists stopped for excessive speed are likely to be driving while intoxicated only about 10 percent of the time (i.e., 10 times out of 100 stops for speeding). But because motorcyclists tend to travel in excess of posted speed limits, speeding is associated with a large portion of all motorcycle DWI arrests.

In other words, while only a small proportion of speeding motorcyclists are likely to be considered DWI, the large number of motorcyclists who are speeding results in a large number of DWIs, despite the relatively small probability.

In cross examination, this can be used if the stopping officer testifies that speeding is a sign of intoxication (which belies the common sense of the jury as well).

Also, the officer should be crossed on all the things your client did right: no drifting, no trouble dismounting, etc.

DWI lawyers should consider asking the officer whether the dismount itself is a useful sobriety test. Many officers will openly scoff at the notion…that’s fine. Prod him to insist that only the NHTSA field sobriety tests are appropriate for evaluating the likeliness of intoxication or impairment.

Then have him read this paragraph from pp7-8 from the NHTSA brochure:

Trouble with Dismount

Parking and dismounting a motorcycle can be a useful field sobriety test. The motorcyclist must turn off the engine and locate and deploy the kickstand. The operator must then balance his or her weight on one foot while swinging the other foot to dismount. But first, the operator must decide upon a safe place to stop the bike. Problems with any step in this sequence can be evidence of alcohol impairment.

And having absolutely no trouble with the dismount is at least some evidence of a lack of impairment, correct Officer? (Doesn’t matter how he answers; the jury gets the point.)

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From today’s Austin American Statesman:

Senate Bill 59, written by Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, gives police the authority to set up temporary sobriety checkpoints. The roadside barricades haven't been legal in Texas since 1994. A state court of appeals ruled them unconstitutional because the Legislature had not developed guidelines to ensure they were being conducted legally.

The bill would add (literally) a new chapter to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure entitled “Sobriety Checkpoints”. This sort of legislation often sounds like a good idea at first…I mean, let’s get those drunks off the roads, right?

But make no mistake about though…this bill will authorize the police to stop vehicles without reasonable suspicion or probable cause.  Non legal mumbo-jumbo translation?... The cops will be able to stop you for any reason, or for no reason at all.

They will then be allowed, after the fact, to “develop” probable cause to believe that an offense has been committed.

Unfortunately, the US Supreme Court has long ago ruled that DWI roadblocks can be constitutional, but the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has so far not allowed them. This is truly a slippery slope folks…be careful what you wish for.  It's not to late to tell your representatives you oppose this.

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I had a DWI client who was initially stopped for making a U-Turn at an intersection in Austin where there was a posted “No Left Turn” sign. Never having seen this exact situation before, I decided to do a little research to find out whether the detention was valid.

Oddly, it turns out that the Texas Transportation Code is nearly silent in terms of laws regulating U-Turns in Texas. Finally I stumbled across something I thought might help in the Austin City Code.

Austin City Code, Title 12, Traffic Regulations, Chapter 12-1 Traffic Regulation and Administration, Section 12 – 1 – 30. That Austin City Code provision says:

§ 12-1-30  U-TURNS RESTRICTED.

The driver of a vehicle may not turn the vehicle to proceed in the opposite direction at:

(1)  an intersection or median opening on a divided street where a posted traffic sign prohibits turning in the opposite direction; or

(2)  a location where the turn is not prohibited, unless the turn can be made safely and without interfering with other traffic.

My argument therefore was that the statute specifically provided that a person may not U-Turn (1) if there’s a “No U-Turn” sign, or (2) if it can’t be done safely.

My client was fortunate that the officer testified at the ALR that there were no other traffic violations besides making a U-Turn where there was a “No Left Turn” sign, that there was not a “No U-Turn” sign, and that the maneuver wasn’t a danger to other traffic around him. 

At the pretrial hearing on the Motion to Suppress, I led the officer through the prior testimony. The judge initially took the case under advisement, asked for briefs and re-argument, and eventually ruled in my client’s favor, granting the Motion to Suppress. All evidence gathered after the detention was “thrown out” (as they say on TV), and it left the State with literally no evidence against my client.

By the way, the State’s argument - and it makes for a pretty good one on a common sense level - is that a U-Turn is necessarily two left turns.

Finally, I should probably point out that this is not only a very specific situation that doesn’t come up very often, and that it only applies in Austin – or other Texas cities with similar Code provisions.

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The NHTSA DWI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Testing Manual has a chapter devoted to “DWI Detection Phase One: Vehicle in Motion”. A list of 24 driving cues which “police officers may use to detect nighttime impaired drivers” is the meat of the chapter.

These same 24 cues are also listed in NHTSA’s booklet “The Visual Detection of DWI Motorists”. The chapter in the manual breaks these driving behaviors, most of which but not all are traffic violations, into four separate categories:

1. Problems Maintaining Proper Lane Position
2. Speed and Braking Problems
3. Vigilance Problems
4. Judgment Problems

The second part of Phase One: Vehicle in Motion is entitled “The Stopping Sequence”. In it, the officer is told to look for how the vehicle responds to the signal to stop (which will almost always be the activation of police overheads). Cues include:

1. an attempt to flee
2. no response
3. slow response
4. an abrupt swerve
5. sudden stop, and
6. striking the curb or another object

In most cases, while my client will probably be spotted initially committing a traffic violation, which may be included in the first 24 driving behaviors, the vast majority of times they exhibit none of the stopping sequence cues.

Absence of these cues, of course, does not prove the absence of intoxication. But, the defense is not required to prove innocence. Secondly, pointing out that all of these behaviors commonly associated with the typical intoxicated driver do not apply to my client can be useful for cross examination of the stopping officer.

[For those interested, The Visual Detection of DWI Motorists is available free of charge in booklet form upon request to: National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – Impaired Driver Division, 400 Seventh Street, SW., Room 5118, Washington D.C., 20590.]

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