You can be charged (in Tennessee) with DUI even if you’re sober, WSMV 4 Investigates reveals

ACAB

I hate that if I point out this is a low-effort comment without phrasing it in this way, people will downvote me because they think I'm disagreeing with it
- It’s succinct not low effort.
  Be mad that we have to have such a phrase to remind us of this global phenomenon.
- It is but it's also right
- Who the fuck cares if a comment is low-effort or high-effort? I don't care about how much work someone put into a comment, I care about the ideas they are communicating with their comment.
- I really do not care about upvotes. I was more at a loss for words but felt compelled to go beyond an upvote.
  You could make the argument it’s low effort. Sorry if it bothered you. Downvote and move on i guess. Sorry people downvoted you for having an opinion. You have my upvote
- AACABPALE

because of a backlog in alcohol and toxicology tests at the TBI, they are forced to wait months for proof of their innocence.

Christ. In a country where even a charge can set you back in terms of your job and other things that might require a background check, maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't be charged until the tests come back positive?

“(The officer) said, ‘I’d like to do a field sobriety test, do you consent? And I said yes, I do consent, but I’d rather do a breathalyzer. And he said, we don’t do breathalyzer in Rutherford County. We do the blood alcohol test at the station based on your behavior.’”

Never consent to a field sobriety test or anything. Never talk to the cops.

I got arrested and got to spend the night in jail because I shouted for a women who was being given a field sobriety test to shut her fucking mouth and stop incriminating herself.
The cops buddy trucked across 4 lanes of traffic to arrest me for “resisting arrest”.
I was put in “timeout” by a cop because his authority was questioned.
The city formally apologized to me via letter and dropped the “resisting arrest” charges but only after I paid too much for a lawyer and requested the body cam footage be ready for my court date.
Fuck the police, I’ve never had a good experience with a police officer. I’ve never felt safer with a cop in the building.
- How long ago was that? ~~Sure~~ Sue them ~~off~~ if you're not beyond the statute of limitations. That's illegal as fuck. If they dropped the charges that quickly they might pay a settlement quick too.
- That's a federal civil rights violation that the police officer would not be able to get qualified immunity for. Unfortunately the damages would be pretty small.
Here in Australia, there aren't any bullshit field sobriety tests - the breathalyzer just comes out and you get tested. If you blow over, you then wait 15 minutes if you produce a lower reading, before trying again. If you still blow over, you then go to the station to get a proper test done before the police can legally prove anything.
There are obviously freedom-based downsides to mandatory roadside testing, but if the alternative is the kind of shit in this story, then I'm happy with our system here. Never had an issue with it myself... unless we're talking roadside drug testing, which is flawed as fuck, and most of the time produces a positive result the day after, leading to a loss of license. We literally have 'road safety' billboards along our highways plastered with the tagline "get caught long after the high is gone."
Australia is so fucking behind the times in so many ways, it drives me insane.
- I believe us yanks are allowed to waive field sobriety tests and request a breathalizer instead.

We found that breathalyzers were giving too many false negatives so we decided to go with taking you to jail, costing you 10-30k in legal fees, having your mugshot printed on the local pos tabloid, and getting you fired instead. Don't worry we'll expunge your record after making you unhireable and fucking over your life for 8 months. Fucking Hell.

Best thing Clarksville ever did was make mugshots private. I mean, it only happened after the sheriff's daughter was charged with something, but it's a good thing either way.

Getting arrested for being Drunk OR Sober is called FREEDOM!

Them: "Are you drunk or sober?"
Me, being sober: "Yes"
Them: "HANDS ON THE GROUND SO I CAN SEE EM MOTHERFUCKER!!!"

America sure is great, isn't it? Except the South.

And everywhere else there's currently cops. Columbia University sure as hell isn't the South to name an example..

I had GBS a few years ago. I fully recovered (mostly) but my balance isn’t what it was. I’m not sure I could pass a field sobriety test so this scares the crap outta me.

If I am reading this headline and understanding the article correctly, "yes they're on a power trip it seems" But... You can be charged with "x" and then found Innocent months later... Which, I think is slow, but at least it's "working" under the f'd up faulty system we (or in this case, TN) have in place.

You can be CHARGED with any kinda bs and be innocent, yes. Me personally, I've been charged with crimes, I've been ticketed unjustly, and usually had some recourse. In Europe I got tickets once and had no recourse whatsoever (a blitzer got me, but I was driving a friend's car).

Issue is that there is no real recourse for you to take against the incompetent power tripping cops, and the arrest itself shows up on your police record and you have to go pay money to get it expunged.
- (Non american here) could you even get out of paying? I imagine refusing to pay for months would get you thrown in jail, re-fined or have your license taken away. And once you finally are proven innocent getting any money back from a beurocracy is slightly harder than getting blood from a stone.