Newport Beach Sobriety Checkpoint Results in Three DUI Charges

The Newport Beach Police operated a sobriety checkpoint at Jamboree Road and Santa Barbara Drive. The checkpoint operated from 8 p.m. Thursday, April 25 until 3 a.m. on Friday April 27. The location was chosen by the police as it was close to sites with higher concentration of DUI arrests and crashes. Out of the 1,011 vehicles that passed through the sobriety checkpoint, five drivers were stopped and screened for DUI. Three drivers were formally charged with drunk driving.

Fighting DUI Charges Resulting from Sobriety Checkpoints

At a field sobriety checkpoint, drivers stopped for DUI are often asked to perform field sobriety tests. In People v. Ojeda, the California court of appeals cast some aspersions on the scientific value of the tests; however, this was not a move to reject its results or the officer's conclusions but, on the contrary, was a way to affirm the police officer's not expert but more than eyewitness authority—an affirmation of administrative knowledge as a distinct realm. The court stated that police officers are "not scientists," since they do not use "experimentation" or "quantification". But that is as it should be, since intoxication is not within the jurisdiction of science anyway. The officer in question "drew his generalization from experience, not from experimentation"—and, considering his time spent as a police offier, this experience was not garden-variety, everyday experience but rather special experience.

The Validity of Field Sobriety Tests in Court

Courts tend to construct intoxication as a loosely put together entity composed of a number of somewhat arbitrarily chosen "facts". Police officers are expected to engage in an indeterminate number of "field sobriety tests," such as requiring suspected drunk drivers to walk a straight line, trying to smell alcohol on the subject's breath, and so on. These tests are qualitative and require no special knowledge or training, but they are part of a particular occupation's epistemological stock-in-trade—what the California Court of Appeal called "special experience." The test at issue in the Ojeda case, the "horizontal nystagmus test," has been scientized by some experts and police officers, who have claimed that the particular place at which the subject's eye veers from the straight line or jerks away is a reliable indicator of the exact amount of alcohol in the blood. However, on the whole courts have insisted that this test is qualitative, not quantitative—which can lead to disputes as to the validity of the evidence. Indeed, the California appeals court approvingly cited an earlier court's statement to the effect that the main obstacle in the admission of the horizontal gaze may be its pretentiously scientific name.

Legal Assistance and Information

Several states currently use sobriety checkpoints to decrease the number of drunk driving incidences, but there is conflicting evidence as to their level of effectiveness. Those who face charges as a result of evidence gathered from California DUI checkpoints have a variety of options.

To receive a free DUI checkpoint arrest consultation from one of our experienced legal professionals, call 949-250-6097. Our Newport Beach DUI attorneys will walk you through the process and inform you of your options.

Written by Randy Collins