Judicial Outcomes of Drunk Driving Cases As a Function of Quantity and Quality of Police Evidence

• NCJ Number: 126683
• Author(s): J R Snortum; P R Riva; D E Berger; T W Mangione
• Date Published: April 2025
• Length: 12 pages
• Grant Number(s): 86-IJ-CX-0056
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

Information from 617 drunk driving cases in Boston, Denver, and Los Angeles formed the basis of an analysis of the approaches used by police officers in drunk driving arrests, the evidence presented in police reports, the relationship between the evidence and guilty pleas or verdicts, and the role of State laws specifying specific blood alcohol levels as conclusive evidence of impaired driving.

Abstract

The sample included 203 jury verdicts of not guilty, 203 guilty verdicts, and 211 guilty pleas. The analysis indicated a basic integrity in the police reports, as shown by the cohesive relationship of blood alcohol measures to accident reports, behavioral descriptions, and field sobriety tests. In addition, the results indicated an underlying rationality of the judicial system in being guided by the decision rules inherent in State laws and in judicial reliance on evidence in determining case disposition. Finally, when other crucial variables were held constant, case disposition was not affected by such auxiliary variables as the defendant's gender, minority status, or type of defense attorney. 7 references