DWI & Videotape Evidence

In Texas DWI cases, there’s almost always a video tape of your client. It will include some driving, and many times the entire substantive interaction between the arresting officer and the defendant.

And that’s going to end up being a better record of how someone did on the Field Sobriety Tests than the officer’s recollection.

True, the initial portion of the traffic stop, i.e., the reason for the initial detention may not be recorded. For example, the Austin DWI Task Force officers drive cars equipped with video cameras, but they only activate once the overheads have been turned on.

Since the officer isn’t going to activate his overheads to pull someone over until after he sees a traffic violation, unfortunately this isn’t caught on tape.

But wait, you say… no video, means no evidence right? And if they can’t prove the traffic violation, then the judge will have to grant a Motion to Suppress and throw the case out.

Not so fast.

There’s no rule requiring the State to present videotape evidence in a DWI, or in any other type of criminal case for that matter. In fact, in most jury trials, for non-DWI offense, there is no video tape evidence of any kind.

Evidence usually comes from the witness stand in the form of oral testimony from one or more witnesses, and that may be it.

How many times do you think the State has to produce a videotape of somebody actually committing a murder to convict them of it? I’m sure it’s happened, but it isn’t all that common.

I’m a big fan of videotape. At least the officer will be confined to the facts of the case, rather than feel free to add incriminating statements or other evidence that can’t be disproved.

I’m also glad to see that Texas DPS has recently gotten a new video machine in some of their vehicles. Apparently, it works like a DVR. It is constantly recording, and it keeps several minutes in the pipeline, so to speak. Then, when overheads are activated, the machine actually saves several minutes worth of video prior to the lights coming on.

Yes, this often leads to videotape evidence of my client committing that traffic violation that the DWI officer is claiming. But the judge was likely to take his word for it anyway, if there hadn’t been video.

Consequently, not having the video of the driving is almost always a losing issue for the defense. But recently, I litigated a Motion to Suppress where the officer had written in his report that my client had ‘Failed to Maintain a Single Marked Lane’.

And the video showed the Trooper’s approach of the vehicle, and my client’s tires barely crossing the line once. But we could also show, due to the DVR-style video, that there was no other traffic around, and that the movement wasn’t unsafe to others.

Based on that, I made the argument that the State had failed to prove reasonable suspicion to detain because the video evidence didn’t meet the standards of the Hernandez case. [Short version: Defendant doesn’t commit Failure to Maintain a Single Marked Lane in a case where he crossed the line once, by 18 inches, and did not cause any safety hazard to others. The case itself has been watered down significantly since it was issued in 1998, but the facts on my video were actually remarkably close to the original case.]

The judge took the case under advisement, and I don’t have a ruling yet. But without that extra bit of videotape evidence, I wouldn’t have been able to even make a credible argument.

I doubt the officer would have admitted that it was only one time, that no other cars were around, that the movement wasn’t unsafe, etc.

The ‘extra’ videotape in that case may end up saving my client from a DWI conviction