Entertaining Video of DWI Stop
DISCLAIMER: The hypothetical below assumes that an individual, such as Mr. Turner, is stopped for DWI here in Texas under current Texas state law.
Although drunk driving is no laughing matter and neither is being pulled over and being charged with DWI, I have to admit that this video of Mr. Turner is very entertaining and funny. A person stopped for DWI here in Texas under current Texas law actually can learn some valuable lessons from watching this video. First of all, Mr. Turner (if stopped for DWI under Texas law) was wise to refuse to perform any more field sobriety tests and refuse to submit to a breath test. He actually makes a valid point, that if the officer can’t perform the test, how can he, lol. Also, I like his defense of that he “might be drunk, but he was not driving”, although I would generally advise against making statements that you are drunk to law enforcement. However, he is correct because if he was in fact not driving the State can not convict him of DWI, because he was not operating a motor vehicle.
In addition, the video points out several things of what not to do. Importantly, don’t look or act like a belligerent individual. Remember that you are being videotaped, and that the prosecutor well use any evidence that the State can introduce to attempt to prove that even if they don’t have any evidence of chemical tests or field sobriety tests, that the State will use the video to illustrate that you do not have your normal physical and/or mental faculties to operate a motor vehicle by introduction of alcohol and/or drugs.
Just thought I would share some general tips, on an otherwise entertaining video of a DWI stop.
Had Mr. Turner been arrested by one of Houston’s finest, he would be beaten to a pulp or dead after this performance. : ) Just say no to the BT & FSTs.
Prosecutors stupidly allowed me to be on a jury deciding a DUI case a few years ago It involved pot. The jury agreed that the sobriety tests, as demonstrated by the officers in court, were the stupidest things that any of us had ever seen and we didn’t think we could pass them sober.
Besides that, the cop lied about the defendant’s car weaving (it did not) and about the fact that the defendant warned them that his balance was impaired from recent inner ear surgery. We acquitted him and I fleetingly thought about referring the license of the prosecutor to the State Bar for putting two liars on the stand. I didn’t because I figured she was just too stupid to look at the videos before she tried the case and showed them. I made sure to tell her what I thought when she came back to talk to the jury that had just poured her out.
@Cynthia Henley
Cynthia,
This is so true and I imagine that there would be no video of the incident as well!
“being charged with suspicion of DWI”
No one ever gets charged with suspicion of DWI. This is nothing but cop talk.
“if he was in fact not driving the State can not charge him with DWI.”
Really? I have had a lot of clients who claimed not to have been driving get charged with DWI. They can and will charge him. Whether they can ultimately get a conviction is something entirely different.
“to illustrate that you had lost your normal physical and/or mental abilities to operate a motor vehicle by introduction of alcohol and/or drugs.”
Nowhere does the DWI statute require the State to show that a person “lost” anything. Same thing for “abilities to operate a motor vehicle.” Those words do not appear in the DWI statute.
“Turner was wise to refuse to perform any more SFSTs….”
Mr. Turner was never asked to perform SFSTs — Though SFSTs did exist in a few places when this video was made in 1984, what he was asked to perform were not SFSTs.
“Mr. Turner was wise to refuse to . . . submit to a breath test.”
You cannot possibly know whether he was wise to decline a breath test without knowing the law in Broward County (Florida, not Texas) in 1984. Some States make refusal a crime. If it was a crime, then such advice would have been unlawful and unethical.
You need to take a bit more time to be a bit more accurate, precise and careful if you are going to comment on DWI issues in ways that some people might take as being authoritative.
Mr. McKinney,
Thank you for the critique. My post and thoughts were made under the assumption of what would take place here in Texas under Texas law and the use of the Standard Field Sobriety testing here currently implemented in Texas. However, you are correct in informing me that a reader might not be aware of those assumptions made in my post. So I thank you for alerting me to those needed changes in my post.