Utah DUI Saturation Patrols.


You don’t see to many sobriety check points in Utah anymore.  The constitutionality of the checkpoints have been brought into question and outlawed in many states.  The procedure involves directing traffic off the road and checking the drivers for alcohol.  Now what the officers do to get around constitutionality problems, is do saturation patrols.  A bunch of officers get together and saturate an area, which is usually around the bar areas, and look for any minor reason to pull citizens over to check them for alcohol.  Here is a news video that shows Office Davenport pull a man over for driving "under" the speed limit and investigating him for alcohol.  The man was just barely over the legal limit after the officer had him blow hard into his hand held portable breath tester.  He tells the man from what he sees that the man is too impaired to drive.  The problem with this is that the studies regarding field sobriety tests say that if you see the minimum clues of impairment, the person should be over a .10 in a breath alcohol result.  In this video, the officer gets a result of .09.  This brings in the officer’s credibility at issue as to whether he really saw clues or did he just smell alcohol and concluded impairment.  He finds something in the man’s pocket and assumes it is Heroin, when in reality it was a roach for marijuana.  Surly an experienced officer such as Davenport could tell the difference.


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