Obesity can be a defense to DUI

Thursday, 16 August 2007

The Napersun.com reports on August 14th, 2007 that An Illnois Judge found a man not guilty of DUI and improper lane change recently.  The DUI defense lawyer argued that his client who weighed 260 lbs. on a six foot frame was medically obese and could not perform standardized field sobriety evaluations due to his size.  The Judge agreed and found him not guilty.  The NHTSA DUI Detection and Standardized Field Sobriety Evaluations manual does recognize appropriate surface conditions, age, shoes like high heels, back injuries, leg injuries, neck injuries as limiting factors as to the reliability of field sobriety evaluations but not obesity.  Clearly, obese individuals have physical challenges which could manifest themselves in poor coordination in field evaluations and be  confused with DUI.  The reality is that field evaluations are not scientific and not really even reliable.  Some people are just more coordinated than others.  At least some judges still have common sense.    Read Article

 

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