🚀 go-pugleaf

On Tue, 30 Jun 1998 09:23:26 -0500, Hackman
<"hacker(nospam)"@jump.nospam.net> wrote:

>KatmanDu! wrote:
>> 
>> On 29 Jun 1998 19:22:40 GMT, russotto@wanda.pond.com (Matthew T.
>> Russotto) wrote:
>> 
>> >Ahh, good old HGN... wave a pen in front of their eyes and say "you
>> >failed".  The cops who dreamed that up must be laughing their ass off.
>> 
>> You're showing your ignorance of Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus and the
>> physiological reasons behind how it works. But that's OK.
>> 
>
>
>oh....
>
>   HGN:     This is the "horizontal gaze nystagmus" test, a relatively
>recent development in DUI investigation.
>            The officer attempts to estimate the angle at which the eye
>begins to jerk ("nystagmus" is
>            medical jargon for eye jerking); if this occurs sooner than
>45 degrees, it theoretically indicates an
>            excessive blood-alcohol concentration. The smoothness of the
>eye's tracking the penlight (or
>            finger or pencil) is also a factor, as is the jerking when
>the eye is as far to the side as it can go.
>            This field sobriety test has proven to be subject to a
>number of different problems, not the least of
>            which is the non-medically trained officer's ability to
>recognize nystagmus and estimate the
>            angle of onset. Because of this, and the fact that the test
>is not accepted by the medical
>            community, it is not admissible as evidence in many states;
>it continues, however, to be widely
>            used by law enforcement. 
>

It does require training to be able to properly recognize and evaluate
HGN, but with training and experience it's a potent tool in the
anti-DUI arsenal.  It's by no means the only tool, nor is it 100%
definitive, but what is?  It's simply another method of evaluating
intoxication.  People may have slurred speech and stagger because they
are having an insulin reaction or a stroke, they may drive poorly
because they are poor drivers, and it's the job of the police officer
to use every tool at his command to carefully evaluate and distinguish
intoxicated persons from those who simply drive badly.

>Note...."the fact that the test is not accepted by the medical
>community, it is not admissible as evidence in many states"

The "medical community" doesn't "accept" that cigarettes cause cancer
either.   HGN is a diagnostic tool in medicine for several ailments,
intoxication being one of them, but not everyone uses it or sees it's
value.   And the fact that it is not admissible in some states is
offset by the fact that it *is* admissible in others.    Many times
it's a political issue, not a factual issue, that keeps HGN out of
court through laws created by the legislature, not by court rulings
based on credible evidence.

The evidence is, for those of us who have used it and had sufficient
training and experience to properly evaluate it, that HGN is very
accurate as  *screening procedure* for intoxication.  This evidence is
backed up by hundreds or thousands of DUI arrests where HGN estimates
have been confirmed as accurate by subsequent chemical tests.

There's nothing like empirical evidence.


>yep...cops yet again wanting to be doctors......

No, just wanting to be cops and get deadly DUI's off the highways by
using one of a number of tools to evaluate intoxication.


Regards,

Scott Weiser

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