Many OVI arrests in Ohio include a few minutes on the side of the road doing tests the officer asks for: walking a line, standing on one foot, following a light or pen with your eyes. These are field sobriety tests, and the officer's notes on how you did often end up as a central part of the police report. They are also among the most challengeable evidence in an OVI case. This article explains what the tests are, whether you have to take them, and how a defense lawyer attacks the results.
What are the field sobriety tests in Ohio?
Ohio officers use three Standardized Field Sobriety Tests (SFSTs): the walk-and-turn, the one-leg stand and the horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) test. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sets specific protocols for how each test is given and scored.
- Walk-and-turn. A balance and instruction test: you walk a line, turn and walk back while the officer watches for set clues.
- One-leg stand. A balance test: you stand on one foot while the officer watches for set clues.
- Horizontal gaze nystagmus. An eye test the officer scores by watching your eyes as they follow an object.
Because the tests are standardized, the protocol becomes the measuring stick. When an officer departs from it, the defense has something concrete to point to.
Do you have to do field sobriety tests in Ohio?
No. Field sobriety tests are voluntary, and Ohio attaches no legal penalty to declining them. Refusing them does not trigger the automatic Administrative License Suspension (ALS) that comes with refusing a chemical test under Ohio's implied consent law, ORC 4511.191.
Declining is not free of consequences. An officer may still use your refusal as one factor to justify an arrest, and it may be commented on at trial. You can also still be arrested if the officer has probable cause from other observations, such as an odor of alcohol, slurred speech or bloodshot eyes.
The chemical test is a separate request with separate rules. The firm's article on refusing a breathalyzer in Ohio covers that decision, and what to do if you are pulled over for OVI walks through the stop from the start.
Why are field sobriety tests subjective?
The officer decides what counts as a clue and records it, usually at night, at the roadside, while also managing traffic and the stop itself. There is no machine reading. What reaches the court is the officer's account of what you did and how they scored it.
The tests also ask a lot of a sober person. You are nervous, you may be tired, you may be on a slope or loose gravel, and you are trying to follow instructions given once in a loud place. Sober people can "fail" these tests. Fatigue, nerves, injuries and medical conditions can all produce the same clues the officer is looking for.
How are field sobriety tests challenged?
They are challenged by comparing what happened at the roadside with what the NHTSA protocol requires, and by showing that something other than impairment explains the result. The main lines of attack are:
- Improper administration. The officer gave the instructions wrong, skipped steps, demonstrated the test incorrectly or scored clues the protocol does not recognize.
- Lack of officer training. The officer's training records do not support the way the test was given or scored.
- Medical conditions. Injuries, balance problems and other conditions can affect performance on the balance tests and the eye test.
- Conditions at the roadside. Weather, the road surface, lighting and passing traffic can all throw off the results.
Video is often the best evidence. Body-cam and dash-cam footage can be checked against the NHTSA procedures for the HGN, walk-and-turn and one-leg stand tests. If the video shows instructions that differ from the report, or a surface that differs from the officer's description, that goes straight to the reliability of the results.
These challenges are raised through pretrial motions and at trial. A field sobriety expert can explain the protocol to the court and point out where the officer departed from it. When the defense shows the tests were given wrongly, their results lose weight, and sometimes the case for probable cause to arrest gets weaker with them.
How do field sobriety tests fit into the rest of the OVI case?
The tests are one piece of the evidence. An OVI case runs on two tracks: the criminal case in court and the administrative license suspension. Field sobriety results matter on both.
In the criminal case, ORC 4511.19(A)(1)(a) allows a conviction on evidence that you were under the influence, whatever a chemical test shows. Poor field sobriety performance is part of the evidence officers testify about in those cases, alongside driving, physical appearance and the odor of alcohol. Weakening the field sobriety evidence can therefore matter even when there is no breath result.
On the license side, the ALS hearing asks whether the officer had reasonable grounds to believe you were impaired, whether the arrest was proper, and whether testing was done correctly. The ALS appeal must be filed within 30 days of the arrest. The roadside tests are often part of what the officer relies on for reasonable grounds.
The tests also interact with the other common defenses. If the stop itself was unlawful, everything that followed, including the field sobriety tests, may be suppressed. And if a breath result is close to a threshold, problems with the field sobriety evidence can add to a challenge of the test.
What the firm does with field sobriety evidence
The firm starts by getting the evidence the prosecution has to hand over: police reports, dash-cam and body-cam footage, and the records behind the officer's observations. From there it:
- compares the video with the officer's report and with the NHTSA protocol for each test;
- looks for medical conditions, injuries or roadside conditions that explain the clues;
- brings in field sobriety and medical experts when the evidence calls for them;
- files pretrial motions challenging the field sobriety tests, the breath test and anything obtained improperly;
- uses the weaknesses it finds when negotiating with the prosecutor, and at trial if the case goes there.
For the penalties and defenses on a first charge, see first OVI defense in Ohio. The main OVI/DUI defense page covers every offense level.
If an officer used field sobriety tests to build an OVI case against you, the video and the protocol are where the defense starts. Call Jwayyed Law LLC at (614) 285-5482 or schedule a consultation.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For legal counsel regarding your specific situation, contact Jwayyed Law, LLC.
