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Whether it is too much pressure from their superiors to make arrests, or insufficient training, apparent wrongful DUI arrests are continuing in Tennessee and across the country. This situation has been reported in this forum, and continues to be reported in Tennessee.1 Fortunately, a video recording of the alleged reasonable suspicion or probable cause that is legally necessary to stop a vehicle to investigate is helpful to the arresting officer, the driver suspected of driving under the influence of an intoxicant, and sometimes, both.
The accusations of an unjustified or illegal arrest only highlight the great difficulty an officer has in determining whether the driver has simply made a driving error, was distracted, was sleepy, or has actually impaired their central nervous system by ingesting or otherwise introducing an intoxicant into their body. Of the thousands of defendants that I have successfully represented, I can report, without hesitation, that there have been only a handful of officers who were either totally incompetent or who intentionally arrested a driver for this very serious crime.
Most officers attempt to follow the complicated protocol established by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to determine whether or not an arrest for DUI/DWI/OUI is justified. One of the problems is that the protocol itself is flawed. It attempts to generalize certain behaviors to determine whether a suspect is safe to drive. Unfortunately, not all of us are able to successfully perform or exhibit the requested behaviors/symptoms to the officer’s satisfaction—even when sober.
Law-enforcement agencies and other “watchdog” groups justify the arrests that are unsupported by the chemical tests by claiming that it is better to falsely arrest someone than to take a chance on killing an innocent party. While their logic is understandable, it does not make it correct.
Once arrested for DUI, it is almost impossible to clear one’s name. And, that does not even count for the trauma of being handcuffed, transported to jail, and spending the night in a dirty, uncomfortable jail cell. Once out of jail, there is the expense of posting bail; legal representation and investigation; the anxiety of waiting months for the results of the chemical (blood, breath, and/or urine) tests; the time missed from work to go to court; the embarrassment of having others believe in one’s guilt; the increased financial expenses such as health and other insurance; explaining the situation to one’s family and children; and the list goes on.
Even after the case is dismissed, assuming that the applicable law allows for expungement (erasure from public record), it is never truly expunged. Law-enforcement agencies will always have a record of the arrest and subsequent dismissal, making it more likely that one would be arrested in the future. Furthermore, due to the omnipresent Internet, private companies that sell information to potential employers and other consumers do not expend much effort to erase reports of a charge that was subsequently dismissed—unless of course, they can make money doing so. Then, there are the scams that these companies implement by accepting a fee to erase the innocent driver’s arrest record from one website, only to publish it on a sister website with the hope of again being paid to erase it from the second website.
So, what is the answer to keep us safe on the roadways? Better training is necessary to assist officers in using the current protocol to determine if a driver is under the influence; a new protocol should be developed to better allow for the variations in our physical differences and capabilities; and implementing technology to perform accurate roadside chemical tests.
- See e.g., https://www.wvlt.tv/2026/04/15/knox-county-deputy-mistook-lysol-smell-alcohol-prompting-sober-dui-arrest-lawsuit-says/, (last visited Apr. 20, 2026).
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.
Steve 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 12 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 and at The University of Gdańsk Faculty of Law in Poland during the winter semester of 2026. If you would like to contact the author, please visit his website at www.tndui.com. ↩︎
