In Minnesota, you don’t have to take any roadside test.
There is absolutely no obligation to participate in any test that takes place on the road (these typically include field sobriety tests and/or preliminary breath tests). In fact, we recommend that you politely decline to participate in these roadside tests. They are designed for you to fail. Your unwillingness to participate is not evidence of criminal wrongdoing – it is simply a demonstration that you understand and are asserting your constitutional rights.
(Note that refusing a test – breath, blood, or urine – once you’ve been arrested and are at the police station is a crime.)
Field sobriety tests are designed to be failed.
Unless you’re Simone Biles, if you stand up now and put your left foot in front of your right, heel touching toe, it won’t take long for you to start to wobble.
“Stay in that position until I tell you to start,” a police officer administering a field sobriety test will say. And then wait. And wait. And wait. Until you tip one way or another and they can call it a sign of impairment.
If you already “failed” a field sobriety test, we can still fight it.
To attribute any scientific importance to these tests, it is critical that they be administered in a standardized fashion and be evaluated using what are known as “standardized cues of impairment.” If an officer fails to administer a field sobriety test according to these guidelines, then the validity of the test is compromised, and the results of the test are rendered irrelevant as evidence of a DWI.
Over the last 35 years, we have watched thousands of field sobriety tests. We know what to look for when challenging these tests, and how to use the improper administration of field sobriety test instructions to defend our clients.
