Why does police paperwork take so long? I hear that officers can spend up to 4 hours to process a DUI suspect. Do officers spend that time just filling out boxes on a large stack of paper?
u201cWhy does police paperwork take so long? I hear that officers can spend up to 4 hours to process a DUI suspect. Do officers spend that time just filling out boxes on a large stack of paper?u201dI was involved in several hundred (maybe close to a thousand) DUI and Zero Tolerance cases during my career and I can attest to the fact that DUI cases u2024 especially the reporting process u2024 were generally the most time-consuming cases I was involved in.The basic reason why DUI cases take so long to complete? Defense attorneys.First, I am going to be as clear as possible in this regard and state, unequivocally, that it is good and proper that a DUI defendant's rights must be a primary consideration. It is essential to the US criminal justice system that the defendant has a competent, vigorous defense. That defense, however, is the major reason why so much goes into reporting a DUI case.A maxim in policing is u201cIf itu2019s not in the report, it didnu2019t happen.u201d Since DUI cases sometimes come to trial several months or even years after the incident, it would be ridiculous to believe that an officer would be able to remember much about a particular incident. Thatu2019s why officers write reports, and those reports must document a lot of observations made by the officer. Video has helped tremendously, but you canu2019t always count on video being available (due to problems with equipment or data corruption) or useful (a squad caru2019s camera facing the wrong direction or a body-worn camera obstructed by the Standardized Field Sobriety Test (SFST) instruction book). Officers must be prepared and capable of writing very detailed reports on their observations of suspected DUI drivers.Successfully defending against a DUI case generally involves attacking the primary reason for the stop, the officer's decision to further investigate the driver for DUI, or the administration of the SFST battery. Of these three issues, most of the time and attention is given to attacking the administration of the SFST battery.Again, I'll be clear u2024 it is very important that an officer knows how to properly administer the SFST battery. However, some of the attorneys who attack the SFST battery apparently believe these tests are done in a controlled laboratory environment, because some of their complaints are based on very exacting standards. For example, the SFST battery instructions for the one-leg stand test include asking the person to stand on one leg for 30 seconds. Some successful defense attacks have been based on the officer telling the person to end the test after 29.4 seconds instead of after the full u201c30u201d seconds. In others, the test is attacked based on another officer letting the person stand on one leg for 31 seconds.In other cases, defense motions to quash SFST results were successful based on the officer having a driver complete the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) test, but mistakenly starting the HGN test by moving the stimulus to the officeru2019s left, not the driveru2019s left. While everything else may have been done exactly right, the defense motion to quash is successful because the HGN u201cstandardu201d was established by officers moving the stimulus to the driveru2019s left. I have never heard of anyone actually claiming that the results would be different by moving the stimulus to the officeru2019s left first, but the test was developed and certified by moving the stimulus to the driveru2019s left, so if itu2019s not done that way, the results may be inadmissible.Another issue with HGN is the time frame involved in moving the stimulus from side to side, and how long the stimulus is held at the far outside edge of the driveru2019s vision (maximum deviation). Defense attorneys have successfully attacked HGN by timing the tests down to a tenth of a second, complaining both when the test is done too quickly and when it takes longer than the u201cstandardu201d time.Sou2024 to make a short story long, officers must know how to administer the test and how to document that the test was administered properly. That adds a lot of time to the initial arrest and process of documenting the case.Again, to be very clear on the matter, Iu2019m not saying itu2019s wrong or bad to expect officers to know what theyu2019re doing while investigating and reporting a DUI. I would love it, though, if someone would re-evaluate the SFST battery including some of the variations involved in defense claims. For instance, does it really make any difference if the HGN is started from the left instead of the right? Iu2019m guessing no. The same goes for ending the one-leg stand a half-second early or two seconds late, or any of the very minute differences involved in those defense claims.
