Why Aren't All DUI Investigations Videotaped?
Why aren't all DUI investigations videotaped? Perhaps it's because police departments across the country are afraid that such a practice might result in more jury acquittals than is presently the case.
The following story, which appears in the blog of the Criminal Lawyers' Association in Harris County Texas, addresses this very issue:
You might think that the Houston Police Department would be eager to use video equipment to record DWI arrests. After all, the video will provide strong evidence of the defendant's physical and mental faculties at the time of the arrest. And if there's a video you can more easily protect yourself against complaints of misconduct. So if you were a police department making righteous arrests and not mistreating people, you'd be eager to have every stage of the arrest documented on video. Right?
Right.
So why is it that [Houston Police Department] DWI Task Force administrator Paul Lassalle is writing to Warren Diepraam and Eric Kugler of the Harris County District Attorney's Office and asking:
Now, [the law] states that we have to purchase and maintain the equipment of video taping a person charged with certain crimes but there is no requirement to actually do so, correct?
It looks to me like [the Houston Police Department] wants justification for not using the video equipment that they are required to have. And Warren is giving them that justification.
Why, if you have to purchase and maintain the video equipment, would you not want to use it?
And why, if you were the lead prosecutor on DWI cases in Harris County, would you not admonish [the Houston Police Department] that the better practice, to make sure that the jury has the best possible evidence, is to use the equipment?
When I first began trying DUI cases in 1990 as a criminal defense lawyer in Palm Beach County, Florida, it was common practice for the Sheriff's Office to videotape the exercises that people were instructed to perform by the side of the road during a routine DUI investigation. After the person was arrested and taken to the county jail, he was again instructed to perform those same exercises while being videotaped.
In several cases that I handled, I was puzzled as to why my client had ever been arrested in the first place since he or she performed the exercises with little, if any, difficulty. I think juries were perplexed too, and they often voiced their perplexity with votes of "not guilty."
So it wasn't surprising that beginning in the early 90's, the Sheriff's Office stopped videotaping people when they were performing exercises by the side of the road. And for the past several years, arrested individuals have not been instructed to repeat such exercises after being taken to the county jail.
The result is that in many cases, jurors never see for themselves how the person on trial actually performed the exercises. They are instead asked to rely upon the self-serving observations of the arresting officer.
Why not go back to videotaping the entire investigation? Isn't the purpose of a trial to discover the truth?
I just got out of a Court case in which I was a witness, in this case, the video and voice was altered to convict the person, and no complaint from the Jury, we are still scratching our heads over that, as the person was convicted of all counts, though he sustained a concussion in a , um,, accident that caused him not to be able to remember the event. The jury convicted on all counts, though he had multiple witnesses to the contrary, most interesting is a supposed blood alcohol level of ,9 , though even myself saw him prior to being transported, sober.
All things considered, no charge was proved at all, all were rebutted , plus the officrs were caught in lies on the stand , and changed their stories more than once.
How can this be?
Sir,
I read your comments in regards to the email chain between myself and some district attorneys. You have taken that chain way out of context in order to make a point that demeans officers and prosecutors. We have had occasions that a video was not available and in those cases the defense attorneys were lying (go figure) to the district attorneys stating that we had to have a video in order to try the case. The email chain was in response to those false statements made by your colleagues in order to prosecute good DWI cases properly.
If you would have been so kind as to have published the entire chain anyone would be able to determine the true intent of the emails. Others would also be able to see the findings of the State Court of Appeals in the matter. Those findings were that a video did not have to be made of the defendant unless the officer believed that the video would provide additional evidence that could lead to the conviction of the defendant, and that the defendant did not have a right to be videotaped at the county’s expense. The other outcome of the decision of that court was to reprimand the county and appellate court that attempted to reverse the guilty verdict in that case.
Let me also state that the Houston Police Department has recently spent over a million dollars in order to update the video systems in the patrol cars used by DWI and other traffic units. We are committed to capturing the evidence on video tape and more importantly removing the impaired driver from the streets. In the event that a video system fails due to the email chain that you misuse in your article, we are able to quash the lies of the defense attorneys and proceed with the case in court. Fortunately in Harris County the testimony of an officer is still believed by a jury and many of these people still get convicted.
I would hope that you would edit your article or remove your abuse of the emails from your website entirely.
The misquoted officer,
Paul Lassalle
Don’t Drink and Drive!