To: The Florida State House, The Florida State Senate, and Governor Ron DeSantis
Stop Field Sobriety Testing - Police are not Doctors
Law enforcement officers are not doctors. But when they try to determine if you are a drunk or drug impaired driver, they use physician examinations.
Many of you would fail field sobriety testing--sober and off all illegal drugs. Routine "drunk testing" is actually three medical tests that only veteran physicians know how to evaluate. So why do law enforcement officers without any meaningful medical knowledge perform advanced medical exams? These examinations are also often on dark streets, in poor weather, and under profound stress on tired people. This is not a smart medical way to determine soberness or drug use?
Over 500 medical problems such as obesity, headaches, limited coordination, diabetes, aging, pain, ADD, poor hydration, cancer, fatigue and many others cause people every day to fail field sobriety testing and get arrested. Many who are arrested do not drink or do any illegal drugs. This is law enforcement practicing medicine without a license. They are not advanced neurologists.
This petition strongly OPPOSES drunk or impaired driving. It is not meant to increase the risk of harm on the road. So law enforcement can simply tape impaired driving without acting as veteran physicians. And they can still perform breath and urine testing.
Many of you would fail field sobriety testing--sober and off all illegal drugs. Routine "drunk testing" is actually three medical tests that only veteran physicians know how to evaluate. So why do law enforcement officers without any meaningful medical knowledge perform advanced medical exams? These examinations are also often on dark streets, in poor weather, and under profound stress on tired people. This is not a smart medical way to determine soberness or drug use?
Over 500 medical problems such as obesity, headaches, limited coordination, diabetes, aging, pain, ADD, poor hydration, cancer, fatigue and many others cause people every day to fail field sobriety testing and get arrested. Many who are arrested do not drink or do any illegal drugs. This is law enforcement practicing medicine without a license. They are not advanced neurologists.
This petition strongly OPPOSES drunk or impaired driving. It is not meant to increase the risk of harm on the road. So law enforcement can simply tape impaired driving without acting as veteran physicians. And they can still perform breath and urine testing.
Why is this important?
Currently, Florida law enforcement officers are taught they can determine drunk driving and illegal drug driving based on a set of three medical tests that you many of you will fail for over 500 medical reasons. It you fail these tests you are going to jail. Period.
Street drunk and drug testing or "field sobriety testing" (FST) is actually advanced brain or neurologist physician testing. So If your are tired, a poor learner, scared, dehydrated, in pain, a diabetic, suffering with a headache, or even a poor skater or gymnast, you are going to jail. Why? Because you have no practice doing these complex medical tests or you have a medical problem that limits your skill at field testing.
If you fail this testing fully sober and drug-free, you are still going to jail.
You will be arrested, handcuffed with sharp steel rings tight on your wrists, your car will be searched as you wait, and you will spend many hours or days in jail, after you are aggressively searched, put in inmate clothing, fingerprinted, photographed for the morning news and fed food fit for dogs.
Even if you are able to pay what a judge eventually determines is your bail, and are released until a hearing or trial, you will lose a good deal of money, time, and you will suffer.
You can lose items of value in your care after your car is taken. You have to "bail out" your towed car. You need to hire a lawyer. You have misc. legal and court fees to pay. You will have to explain to your boss or clients, why you are in the paper and why you have been gone one or more days.
This is simply law officers playing doctor who will never be skilled enough to understand the hundreds of variables that effect the three field sobriety tests. Hundreds of physical limitations or diseases undermine your ability to perform these field sobriety tests (FST) and these illnesses can be found in the free book, Sobriety Testing, by James Schaller, MD and Kim Mountjoy, MS at www.personalconsult.com, or in a hard copy at your favorite book store.
Years ago a tired, dehydrated neurologist left an educational conference in Tampa, because a seizure patient became angry at him and was acting psychotic. To protect the rest of Hotel and patrons, he told the patient he was leaving, and talked to over ten people as he loaded his many files, books and clothing as a local police woman talked with him over thirty minutes. Video shows him driving and loading perfectly.
Ninety seconds after leaving the hotel he was stopped and told to reverse in a complex manner which he did perfectly. He produced his ID materials quickly, and yet after he failed field sobriety testing after sitting handcuffed a long time in boiling Tampa blacktop, he was arrested. The arresting officer refused to talk to the hotel police officer who assisted the physician in moving his car closer for loading. The neurologist was speaking and writing at the conference, and had hundreds of books with him--so many it took him an hour to load his car at times feet away from this hotel officer.
After the arrest, the officer lied and said the neurologist was slurring words and mumbling, when from taped messages left minutes before he drove, it is clear his voice was perfect. The field sobriety test trouble gave the officer confidence to "load the report" with items consistent with a drunk person.
All charges were eventually dropped as they waited weeks for the drug testing to return. No alcohol or illegal drugs were found. Yet the entire process cost over 7,000 and the neurologist reports he will never trust law enforcement again.
This arrest is eternal even if the charges are dropped, and in some counties, the prosecution will almost never drop a charge due to the prosecution ideology. The attorney general office can have the goal of justice, balance, high convictions at any cost or income earning plea deals.
Just remember, this may all happen because of an old rear light or you did not fully stop three seconds at a stop sign. A smart law officer can usually find some reason to full you over.
Most of you will fear law enforcement the rest of your life. You will likely stop assisting good law enforcement with tips or help them fight crime based on this unjust experience.
That attitude is a massive loss to ethical and high quality law officers who need citizens to help them oppose serious crime. It also undermines the dangers of impaired drivers, who must be stopped from causing dangerous crashes.
Street drunk and drug testing or "field sobriety testing" (FST) is actually advanced brain or neurologist physician testing. So If your are tired, a poor learner, scared, dehydrated, in pain, a diabetic, suffering with a headache, or even a poor skater or gymnast, you are going to jail. Why? Because you have no practice doing these complex medical tests or you have a medical problem that limits your skill at field testing.
If you fail this testing fully sober and drug-free, you are still going to jail.
You will be arrested, handcuffed with sharp steel rings tight on your wrists, your car will be searched as you wait, and you will spend many hours or days in jail, after you are aggressively searched, put in inmate clothing, fingerprinted, photographed for the morning news and fed food fit for dogs.
Even if you are able to pay what a judge eventually determines is your bail, and are released until a hearing or trial, you will lose a good deal of money, time, and you will suffer.
You can lose items of value in your care after your car is taken. You have to "bail out" your towed car. You need to hire a lawyer. You have misc. legal and court fees to pay. You will have to explain to your boss or clients, why you are in the paper and why you have been gone one or more days.
This is simply law officers playing doctor who will never be skilled enough to understand the hundreds of variables that effect the three field sobriety tests. Hundreds of physical limitations or diseases undermine your ability to perform these field sobriety tests (FST) and these illnesses can be found in the free book, Sobriety Testing, by James Schaller, MD and Kim Mountjoy, MS at www.personalconsult.com, or in a hard copy at your favorite book store.
Years ago a tired, dehydrated neurologist left an educational conference in Tampa, because a seizure patient became angry at him and was acting psychotic. To protect the rest of Hotel and patrons, he told the patient he was leaving, and talked to over ten people as he loaded his many files, books and clothing as a local police woman talked with him over thirty minutes. Video shows him driving and loading perfectly.
Ninety seconds after leaving the hotel he was stopped and told to reverse in a complex manner which he did perfectly. He produced his ID materials quickly, and yet after he failed field sobriety testing after sitting handcuffed a long time in boiling Tampa blacktop, he was arrested. The arresting officer refused to talk to the hotel police officer who assisted the physician in moving his car closer for loading. The neurologist was speaking and writing at the conference, and had hundreds of books with him--so many it took him an hour to load his car at times feet away from this hotel officer.
After the arrest, the officer lied and said the neurologist was slurring words and mumbling, when from taped messages left minutes before he drove, it is clear his voice was perfect. The field sobriety test trouble gave the officer confidence to "load the report" with items consistent with a drunk person.
All charges were eventually dropped as they waited weeks for the drug testing to return. No alcohol or illegal drugs were found. Yet the entire process cost over 7,000 and the neurologist reports he will never trust law enforcement again.
This arrest is eternal even if the charges are dropped, and in some counties, the prosecution will almost never drop a charge due to the prosecution ideology. The attorney general office can have the goal of justice, balance, high convictions at any cost or income earning plea deals.
Just remember, this may all happen because of an old rear light or you did not fully stop three seconds at a stop sign. A smart law officer can usually find some reason to full you over.
Most of you will fear law enforcement the rest of your life. You will likely stop assisting good law enforcement with tips or help them fight crime based on this unjust experience.
That attitude is a massive loss to ethical and high quality law officers who need citizens to help them oppose serious crime. It also undermines the dangers of impaired drivers, who must be stopped from causing dangerous crashes.