This guide is intended to familiarize you with the evidence that is commonly presented by the state and by the defense in Georgia DUI cases.

Incident Reports

Incident reports are, quite simply, the arresting officer's (or other officers who were present during the detention) personal account of the incident. Incident reports provide an early glimpse at what testimony the arresting officer will provide in the case. While officers frequently seek to interpret vagueness into their reports, the incident reports are an officer's earliest account of events surrounding your arrest. The officer was under no strict time constraint when this report was prepared, and while officers frequently "remember" details not included in their report, the report provided the officer with an opportunity to recall in detail the facts of the incident in as much detail as possible just after the incident.

Field Sobriety "Evaluations"

Field sobriety "evaluations" in DUI cases are typically comprised of the horizontal gaze nystasius (HGN) Evaluation, the 9-step walk and turn test, and one-leg stand test. These three evaluations have been (validated" by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). There are numerous other evaluations which we see officers perform in their efforts to determine or show that a driver is a "less safe" driver as a result of alcohol, drugs, or some other intoxicant.

Portable Breath Test

Many DUI defendants mistakenly believe that the breath test they submit to roadside is used to establish whether they are "per se" DUI. The numeric result produced by this roadside breath test is generally inadmissible in evidence against you. In almost every DUI case, this roadside breath test is only admissible to show whether the results were positive or negative for alcohol. So, if you admitted to the officer that you had consumed alcohol prior to the stop, how damaging is this evidence? The answer is that this evidence tells us very little, if anything. Remember, it is not illegal to merely consume alcohol and drive in Georgia.

State-Administered Blood, Breath, or Urine Test