Michigan Criminal Defense Law Blog

According to articles reported in the NY Daily News, in April 2015, Oliver Wiggins was struck by a police cruiser that had run a red light.  Instead of offering Mr. Wiggins an apology, however, Brooklyn Police arrested him for drunk driving!  A breath test later revealed that Wiggins had consumed no alcohol, and the EMT and DWI technician involved in the arrest both indicated that Mr. Wiggins showed no signs of intoxication.  Despite this, the official narrative police report, prepared by City of Brooklyn Police Officer Justin Joseph, indicated that Mr. Wiggins had red watery eyes, slurred speech, an odor of alcohol on his breath and was swaying.  Mr. Wiggins, a native of Jamaica, claims all of this was false and was only part of an effort by Officer Joseph to cover up for his own wrongdoing!

The prosecuting attorney eventually dismissed the charges against Mr. Wiggins, but Mr. Wiggins still lost his license and had a large repair bill on his car.  His insurance company refused to cover the accident because of the DUI arrest.  Additionally, Mr. Wiggins’ lawyer claimed that he suffered an injury to his wrist.

Because of the wrongful arrest, Mr. Wiggins hired a lawyer to sue the City.  Later, and ostensibly and euphemistically to only “avoid trial,” The City of Brooklyn paid out nearly One Million Dollars in damages!  The worst part of all this is that the officers involved in this egregious abuse of power are still out there on the street making arrests.  They have not lost their jobs nor have any charges been filed against them.

In Tennessee, a person convicted of DUI would be ordered to pay a “Blood Alcohol or Drug Determination Test (BADT)” fee as part of their court costs.  No BADT fee was charged where a case was dismissed, a not guilty verdict returned, or where a defendant pled to a non-DUI related offense.  Then, according to Tennessee law, the BADT fees collected were paid ultimately to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation where they were used for all TBI agency operational costs.  The blood testing portion of these fees had recently been increased to $250.00, and the Tennessee forensic lab relied on these BADT fees, and the recent increase, to fund the largest portion of their operating expenses.  This is all written in past-tense language because a Tennessee Court of Appeals has recently ruled that this practice was unconstitutional.  Specifically, the court found:

Because the money from the $250 BADT fees is placed directly in the intoxicant testing fund which is “designated for exclusive use by the TBI,” there is no question that the TBI, an agency of the State, has a direct pecuniary interest in securing convictions. The TBI forensic scientists also have a financial interest in securing convictions because the collection of the BADT fees affects their continued employment and salary, which gives them an incentive to find that defendants’ blood alcohol content is 0.08% or higher.

There are many interesting things about this opinion, not the least of which is the fact that it lays bare the assertion by the States that their forensic labs are independent.  In Michigan for example, the lab techs that test blood samples for alcohol proudly testify that they care not what the results are because they only care about the integrity of the science they employ. In other words, they attempt to hide behind a veil of scientific objectivity. This is a great sound-bite for the jury but that does not make it true.

Michigan’s intoxicated driving laws cover intoxication by alcohol and all impairing drugs. Reliably detecting intoxication by drugs is more challenging for law enforcement than detecting intoxication caused by alcohol.  One reason for this is that there is no roadside drug test that can help officers in the field determine the cause of impairment, and to distinguish drug-induced impairment from that caused from more benign causes such as sleep deprivation or certain medical conditions.

It is well-established for example, that alcohol can cause nystagmus, which is a jerking of the eye as it moves across a horizontal plane.  Because of this correlation, the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, which looks for this jerking in the eye, is one of the three standardized field sobriety tests. This alcohol inducted jerking is easy to detect, and police officers around the country can testify in court about their observations during the HGN provided it the test is properly administered. The HGN is also part of the 12-step drug recognition protocol because some drugs other than alcohol can also cause nystagmus. However, a limitation for both prosecutors and defense attorneys is that police patrol vehicle video recording equipment is not able to record the nystagmus that officers ostensibly observe.

A novel solution to this need for a reliable roadside test for drugs, and the limitations of no HGN recording, has been developed and involves recording and analyzing the movement of a person’s eyes.  This technology is currently undergoing a new round of funding and Michigan drivers may be subjected to it in the near future.  As of the date of this article this technology is being used in Colorado, California, and Tennessee.

Existing law may be sufficient to convict an intoxicated occupant of an autonomous vehicle of drunk driving. This is because the law in most states contains a sufficiently broad definition of the term “operate.”  Public safety is likely to be the paramount concern of the courts as they grapple with this important issue.  It is also possible that state legislatures will step in with laws to cover the various scenarios that will arise in the era of autonomous driving.

It remains to be seen if this issue will be addressed by our legislatures before or after autonomous vehicles become common.  History has shown that lawmaking lags technology, so it seems likely that various test cases will arise around the country before state legislatures address this issue.  Baring specific legislation, courts in the various states will apply the existing common law, and this will dictate their decision.

Currently, relative to non-autonomous vehicles, most states have very broad definitions of the term “operate[i]” such that in most of the circumstances that arise with non-autonomous vehicles, the occupant will be found to be “operating” even if they are not literally “driving.” This broad definition arose in case law around the county to cover situations where a traditional definition of operating would otherwise fail, such as those cases involving intoxicated occupants found sleeping inside their vehicles, or in other circumstances where the vehicle is not moving. This drunk operation case law will be discussed in some detail below.