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Questioning Field Sobriety Tests

By Kent Scheidegger et al.

The latest issue of Law & Human Behavior has an article by psychologist Steven J. Rubenzer titled The Standardized Field Sobriety Tests: A Review of Scientific and Legal Issues (subscription required): This article details the history and development of the National Highway and Safety Administration?s Standardized Field Sobriety Tests. They are reviewed in terms of relevant scientific, psychometric, and legal issues. It is concluded that the research that supports their use is limited, important confounding variables have not been thoroughly studied, reliability is mediocre, and that their developers and prosecution-oriented publications have oversold the tests. Further, case law since their development has severed the tests from their validation data, so that they are not admissible on the criterion for which they were validated (blood alcohol concentration), and admissible for a criterion for which they were not (mental, physical, or driving impairment)...continue to full post

Full post as published by Crime and Consequences on July 14, 2008 (boomark / email).