Those who read my blog posts of March 3, 2025 and March 10, 2025 will be happy to now read that Governor Bill Lee has now signed Senate Bill 1166 into law. It is now designated as 2025 Public Chapter 327. Congratulations to WSMV TV (Channel 4) in Nashville, Tennessee for their investigation divulging how hundreds of innocent drivers have been wrongfully arrested for the crime of driving under the influence. More information from WSMV TV may be obtained here.
This bill requires the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation to provide a report to the speakers of the Senate and the House of Representatives on or before January 1 each year detailing the instances in the most recent year for which complete data is available in which a person who was arrested for driving under the influence but where no alcohol or other intoxicants are detected in the person’s blood or breath. This law amends statutes in T.C.A. Title 6; Title 7; Title 8 and Title 38. It is disappointing, however, to note that the provisions of this bill are to be repealed on July 1, 2029.
Although law-enforcement officers likely have good intentions when stopping suspected intoxicated drivers to ensure our roads are safe, the fact of the matter is that no field sobriety test is always accurate. The detection methods to determine whether someone is under the influence of an intoxicant must be better scrutinized and improved in order to avoid arresting so many sober drivers.
Interestingly, over the last ten years, our law firm has been tracking the officers in Knox County, Anderson County, Blount County, Jefferson County, Sevier County, Loudon County, Roane County, and other counties in East Tennessee to determine which officers are arresting our clients when there is no intoxicant present. We encourage other law firms to do the same.
About the Author: Steven Oberman has been licensed in Tennessee since 1980, and successfully defended over 2,500 DUI defendants. Steve was the first lawyer in Tennessee to be Board Certified as a DUI Defense Specialist by the National College for DUI Defense, Inc. (NCDD). Among the many honors bestowed upon him, Steve has served as Dean of the NCDD and currently serves as chair of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers DUI Committee.
He is the author of DUI: The Crime & Consequences in Tennessee, updated annually since 1991 (Thomson-West), and co-author with Lawrence Taylor (1942 – 2023) of the national treatise, Drunk Driving Defense, 9th edition (Wolters Kluwer/Aspen). Steve has served as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee Law School since 1993 and has received a number of prestigious awards for his faculty contributions. He is a popular international speaker, having spoken at legal seminars in 30 states, the District of Columbia and 10 foreign countries. After being named a Fulbright Scholar, Steve was honored to teach as a Visiting Professor at the University of Latvia Faculty of Law (Law School) in the capital city of Riga, Latvia for a semester during 2019. In 2023, Steve accepted an offer to teach for a semester as a Visiting Professor at Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law in Budapest, Hungary. Steve was designated a Fulbright Scholar for a second time and taught American Criminal Law and American Trial Advocacy at The University of Ljubljana Faculty of Law in the capital city of Ljubljana, Slovenia for the 2024 spring semester. Since then, Steve taught American Trial Advocacy to Masters Students in Criminal and Criminal Procedure Law for the Winter Semester in 2025 at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Faculty of Law in Madrid, Spain. If you would like to contact the author, please visit his website at www.tndui.com.
