Legal Standards Flashcards

What does 'DRE' stand for in the context of drug-impaired driving investigation?

Answer: Drug Recognition Expert

Drug Recognition Experts are officers specially trained to identify drug impairment beyond alcohol, supplementing standard SFST protocols.

When a motorist is stopped at a sobriety checkpoint, which constitutional protection is most directly at issue?

Answer: Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable seizure

Checkpoints are Fourth Amendment seizures; the Supreme Court upheld them in Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz as reasonable given public safety interests.

In a DUI case, hearsay testimony about a bystander's report that the driver 'was swerving' is generally:

Answer: Admissible as an excited utterance if made shortly after witnessing the event

An excited utterance — a spontaneous statement made under stress of excitement from a startling event — is a recognized hearsay exception.

Which doctrine allows evidence discovered during a valid inventory search of an impounded DUI suspect's vehicle?

Answer: Inventory search exception to the warrant requirement

The inventory search exception permits a warrantless search of an impounded vehicle to document its contents and protect the agency from liability.

An officer testifies that the HGN test revealed 6 of 6 possible clues. What is the legal significance of this finding?

Answer: It supports probable cause to arrest and may indicate BAC at or above 0.08%

Maximum HGN clues support probable cause for arrest and, per NHTSA research, correlate with BAC at or above 0.08%, but the test does not establish BAC by itself.

Which legal concept protects officers from personal liability when making DUI arrests in good faith based on available evidence?

Answer: Qualified immunity

Qualified immunity shields officers from civil suits unless their conduct violated clearly established law that a reasonable officer would have known.

A driver states 'I only had two beers' during a traffic stop before any formal arrest. Is this statement admissible?

Answer: Yes, because voluntary statements made before custodial interrogation are admissible

Pre-custodial, spontaneous statements are not subject to Miranda and are generally admissible as voluntary admissions.