If a police officer sees a vehicle with odd driving patterns - such as failure to maintain a single lane, swerving, or otherwise driving erratically - he will usually pull over the vehicle. Then, he inquires about the driver's sobriety and may ask the motorist to perform roadside field sobriety tests or even blow into a handheld breath test device. During all of this, he also gauges the driver's overall appearance of intoxication. Common indicators a law enforcement officer could cite that point to a decision regarding intoxication include slurred speech, bloodshot eyes, and even confusion or disorientation.
A few years ago, a serious problem with this model became known to the public when a local Orlando television news station reported on the pre-written reports. These reports covered all of the bases, describing the general conditions of the DUI arrest in a "Mad Libs" sort of fashion. For example, the pre-composed reports had fields such as "I asked the suspect how much he had been drinking tonight and he responded ________" or "I made the traffic stop when the weather was _(cool/warm)_ and it was _(dark/daylight)_ outside." These pre-made DUI arrest reports are problematic because they do not demonstrate the individualized issues with each defendant. They may also encourage officers from abandoning traditional investigative techniques and simply filling in easy answers throughout the DUI template.
When a police officer comes to court to testify against a DUI/DWI defendant, it is often many months following the actual arrest. Because law enforcement officials make such a high volume of arrests in many cases, they likely do not remember the particular details of each arrest from the prior year or six months earlier. Therefore, they refresh their memories with the reports they filed for the case before they take the stand. These reports, which may be heavily relied upon by the police officer when testifying, need to be as complete, accurate, and individualized as possible for fairness to the DUI defendant.
