HGN in Florida DUI Cases

If you have been arrested for DUI in Broward County, Florida, you know that it is common practice in DUI cases for the Broward Sherriff’s Officer to require the defendant to submit to a battery of exercises. These may include the finger-to-nose test, the walk-and-turn test, the one-legged stand test, the balance test, the alphabet test, and the horizontal gaze nystagmus test. A trial judge ruled that these test results are not subject to exclusion under the rationale of State v. Bodden, where the court ruled that urine test results were inadmissible because the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had not promulgated any rules for the administration of the tests. There are a number of possible other objections to these procedures that should be considered however. For more information, contact the DUI defense lawyers at William Moore Criminal Defense, P.A.

Based on experience, I have found the introduction of unfavorable HGN results to be very damaging to a DUI defense attorneys case. Considering that this highly controversial evidence gathering technique is so easily suppressed, Fort Lauderdale DUI attorneys routinely caution young attorneys against minimizing the threat of such evidence in preparing for trial.