More than half of police officers in Texas are certified to administer field sobriety tests to subjects stopped and being investigated for DWI. The percentage is even higher in Austin.
The Austin Police Department created a specialized DWI Enforcement Unit (defense lawyers around here tend to refer to it as the ‘DWI Task Force’) in August of 1998. Since that time, arrests for DWI in and around Austin have more than doubled.
This blog will focus on DWI issues from the criminal defense lawyer’s perspective, and a great number of posts will be devoted to talking about the field sobriety tests, errors made in administration of the tests, and how to defend yourself against DWI charges brought primarily because of an officer’s opinion that you did not perform well enough on these tests.