Local police add drug exams to sobriety checks
dbrownstein@islandpacket.com
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BLUFFTON -- The white Ford pickup came to an abrupt stop at a Hilton Head Island traffic light. When the light turned green, a Beaufort County sheriff's deputy followed the driver.
The truck was drifting in and out of its lane and almost struck the curb and median several times, according to police reports..
Suspecting the driver was drunk, the deputy pulled over the 19-year-old man. He had the driver perform field sobriety tests. The driver failed two of the three and was arrested for driving under the influence.
But back at the station, there was a surprise.
A breath test showed his blood-alcohol level was .02, well below South Carolina's legal limit of .08. But officers now have another tool at their disposal: a certified drug recognition expert trained to search for symptoms of drug use.
Beaufort County has four such officers trained to administer the hour-long examinations.
The exam includes testing the suspect's eyes, pulse, blood pressure, muscle tone and attention. The officers can use the test to identify which of the seven drug categories the suspect may have taken: depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, anesthetics, narcotics, inhalants or cannabis.
In the case of the pickup driver, Sgt. Timothy Slupski's examination revealed the suspect had probably smoked marijuana and taken depressants, authorities said. He was charged with driving under the influence, the same charge faced by a drunken driver.
It will be some time before officers know if the charge will stand up. It will take up to six weeks to get the results of a urine sample being tested by the State Law Enforcement Division.
Officers say their process of taking vital signs, looking deep into the suspect's eyes and the lengthy interview has an 80 percent accuracy rate.
Hardly a week goes by in Beaufort County that a drug recognition expert isn't called in to work a case.
It's time-consuming work. Building a strong drunken driving case takes about two hours from the time a car is pulled over. Building a case that the driver was on drugs takes nearly four.
"Before, when a person blew a double goose egg (on the breath test for alcohol), you were sort of scratching your head," said Beaufort police officer Billy Lewis.
To be certified, officers must first have advanced training in field sobriety tests and get a letter of recommendation from an officer already trained in the field and permission from their supervisor and the solicitor's office.
The two-week training in Phoenix is extensive. Graduates perform drug examinations on at least 12 incoming prisoners. The officers must correctly identify the category of drug the inmates are using at least 75 percent of the time.
As with any sobriety test, a drug examination is voluntary.
But if the suspect declines any portion of the test, state law requires his driver's license be suspended for 90 days.
Of the approximately 100 tests administered locally by Lewis and Officer David Kopenhaver of the Bluffton Police Department, only one person has refused. The tests cleared six suspected impaired drivers.
However, defense attorneys question the practice.
"A few hours of training does not make them an expert," said defense attorney Sam Bauer. "This is something fairly new that we're seeing in Beaufort County, but whether or not someone is on drugs or alcohol doesn't matter. The question is whether they're impaired on any substance, and the best way to determine that is to properly administer a field sobriety test."
After watching "thousands" of videotapes of field sobriety tests over a 17-year period, Bauer estimates only 5 percent of local officers do the tests correctly.
A 1994 study by a Clemson University professor had 21 completely sober people perform field sobriety tests. The videotape was then shown to 14 police officers, who identified the sober subjects as too drunk to drive 46 percent of the time.
"I think the citizens have to remember that they're given their rights for a reason and that protection exists to protect the innocent," Bauer said. "If you're pulled over by a law enforcement officer, you should comply with requests for officer safety and your own safety, but you don't have to provide any information to the officer that can be misused to prove you're guilty even when you're not."