FALSE ARRESTS FOR DUI ARE A GROWING PROBLEM IN THE USA!

I was falsely arrested for alleged DUI by two deputies in Alachua County, Florida, after having purchased only four mixed drinks over a period of seven hours in the bar, and I never even finished the last drink! So I had one drink per two hours! My turn signals were not working after my left headlight unit was sacrificed to a dead deer, and I did not realize that they are teaching these idiots in officer training class that if you see someone change lanes without signalling, that means the driver is drunk, so pull him over. The deputy who pulled me over is lying about his probable cause for doing so, and on top of that, he created a second lie out of whole cloth to bolster his first lie, and that requires criminal intent!

They make the decision to arrest based, not on Blood Alcohol Level (aka Blood Alcohol Content), but on the basis of Standardized Field Sobriety Tests conjured up by NHTSA, who have been lying about the accuracy of those tests for decades! The tests had very few subjects with very low BAL, and they failed to note that those subjects frequently showed false positive signs. Also, in my case, I had a medical condition that would have affected at least one test result. And note that these tests are subject to the whims of the observer  He can claim to see things he did not actually witness!  This is the state where a deputy found substances in cars and performed field tests on those substances and then stated the test was positive, when it was not, but he then threw away the substance and the reagent. He was caught after 14 false arrests! They can do much the same with these field sobriety tests.

NEVER ALLOW AN OFFICER TO SEARCH YOUR CAR! If he really wants to search your car, he must then get a warrant, and that warrant must state specifically what he is looking for, and anything found that is not on the warrant, he can't use against you!

There are about eight or ten electronic breath analyzers on the market. Most of these can be tricked to yield a false number by the operator! I once lost a job after my department in a Caldor store had three cameras stolen by a third party rep at a photo fair we held to teach people how to take better photos. They called in a polygraph operator and told us individually to visit a specific room in a nearby motel. The store manager had previously been my father's best friend when they both worked in another store. He thought I was trying to use his relationship with my father to climb my way up the ladder with Caldor. Nothing could be further from the truth! But he told the polygraph operator that he wanted me to be the guilty one. Nobody who worked there could have snuck three boxed cameras out of the store! Those outside reps came in with suitcases full of gear, and we failed to check their cases before they left. But the operator asked me all of his questions, to which I responded without exciting the machine. So then he accused me of using my position as Assistant Department Manager to give the female employees better hours on the schedule, if they agreed to date me. I was just discovering that I was gay at that time, and there were only two female employees, one of whom was indeed hot, but old enough to be my mother, so no interest there. The other was younger than me, but very chubby, and had the world's worst teeth. I would not had kissed her with that operator's mouth! He got my blood boiling, and then he asked me some of the same questions, and got a very positive response from the machine. Almost all electronic instruments like that can be made to show false results! 

I am writing a book about my experience with this false arrest. I spent well over 2,000 hours researching DUI arrests to get to the truth! The guy who operated that machine stopped me as my first blow was well now the limit. He then rebooted the machine, which I had watched him unplug from the wall outlet. He put on quite a show to make me think it was a bad connection to the outlet. He then changed the breathing instructions, and even tried to get to get the reading even higher, by changing the instructions between the two blows! My public pretender--he was a very ineffective counsel--saw the results and said "There's an anomaly." There was a vast difference between the two blows in one figure, but had the breathing instructions in the manual been followed, you could never get that difference! 

At trial, my public pretender refused to bring up that irregularity to the court. I, in the meantime, had found a lot of information on the Intoxilyzer on the website of a law firm that did a lot of DUI defense work. So I asked the FDLE to send me the login data for that machine. Sure enough, there was no login on the day of my test, even though he had to have logged in to start the test. So I had lots of evidence with me on the stand, and the judge ordered me not to address the jury except in response to my attorney's questions. And the prosecutor's office, who had lied about something on two documents they sent you the court, objected to my responses in several cases. Once I even quoted something the deputy had told me when he first pulled .me over. The prosecutor objected on the grounds that it was hearsay, and the judge upheld it. Excuse me, but hearsay would be something I heard from a third party who was not present!

I am writing a book about this fraudulent arrest, which I hope to have published before New Year's Rockin' Eve. I will try to have it ready to publish by mid-November. If you ever drive home from a bar, you should read this book! And the best time to read it is BEFORE you get pulled over, but failing that, at least read it before your trial! False arrests for alleged DUI are a growing problem across this nation, as they bring in lots of money in fees and fines. Florida has strong police unions who lobby the legislators to pass laws  that make easier to obtain convictions. Other states are seeing Florida's success and police unions all over the country are lobbying for similar laws. For instance, they prosecute these cases under the DUBAL (Driving with Unlawful Blood Alcohol Level) law. Defendants are not allowed to present evidence of lack of impairment! The State is well aware of the number of cases that have been dismissed because the plug was pulled on the Intoxilyzer device. This would seem to be a clear violation of due process of law! They are convicting on the basis of a number which they know, reasonably ought to know, or have a duty to know,  can easily be made fraudulent by the operator. And they are denying the defense any right to enter any evidence of lack of impairment! You can't even use the dashcam video to show the driver heading straight up the center of his lane! My arrest report said I was driving with no headlights whatsoever at 2:19 AM. You can see my passenger side headlight working properly in their dashcam video. In our first bond reduction hearing, the judge asked the Assistant State's Attorney what the state's position would be on a bond reduction, the response was "we're opposed, your honor, because of the charges." He was referring to the statement that I was driving with no headlights whatsoever. If they can deny me a bond reduction because of that demonstrably false statement on the arrest report, then to find me guilty AS CHARGED, they should have to prove I was driving with no headlights whatsoever! The whole case against me was based on lies and faulty operation of a machine which was very poorly designed, and which allows evidence of a low blow to be destroyed  and be unrecoverable simply because data is only held in RAM until the test is completely finished. In part due to COVID 19, it took my case more than two full years to come to trial, and then it took the Appellate Court nearly two years to decide to uphold the verdict, both of which lengths are unreasonable! 

I want millions of dollars in compensatory damages and five times that in punitive damages, from more than half a dozen defendants! And I want punitive damages of five times the compensatory damages. I had a very good reputation as a freelance photojournalist specializing in motorsports for about two decades, and I would very much like to start doing more of that in my retirement. But by insinuating that I am the village drunk, who would get in and drive a car while impaired, this case is a severe challenge to my integrity and my reputation. I think I have been damaged to at least the same degree as E. Jean Carroll was damaged, and if she got $83 million, I should get at least the same! I turned 77 years old in pre-trial confinement and l lost seven of my eight cats, including the most innocent creature on the planet, a 5-1/2 week old kitten who showed signs of being a shoulder cat, which I had not had in x15 years. I wanted to grow old with him! The 5+ years that they have stolen from me so far are a significant portion of what life I have remaining--even if I fully expect to live to be 120 years old!

And if all this can happen to me, it can certainly happen to you! There may be a few honest law enforcement officers left, but there are plenty who don't care how badly they hurt you as long as it enhances their own position.