Chicago DUI lawyer says cut and paste DUI arrest reports are standard

This Chicago DUI lawyer has seen a slew of DUI arrest reports. I've posted here, here , and here about DUI testing. One of the things I notice is that, with limited exceptions, every DUI arrest report has the same characteristics.

I pulled over the supsect due to some sort of traffic violation. Once I spoke to the suspect there was a strong odor of alcohol on the suspect's breath. I then noticed that the suspect's eyes were red, bloodshot, glassy. The suspect's speech was slurred.

You get the point right? It's basically a check the box form and the boxes tell the arresting officer what the clues are. Sometimes the arresting officer doesn't even see this as a problem.

August 8, Bartow, FL

Prosecutors have abandoned charges against 54 people accused of driving under the influence, citing concerns about a deputy's shortcuts in writing reports and conducting blood alcohol tests.

Deputy Tex Thomas has made about 124 arrests for DUI since he began working last year for the Polk County Sheriff's Office.

In a deposition, Thomas spoke about preparing reports by cutting-and-pasting words from previous DUI reports as a "template" rather than starting with a blank page.

The State Attorney's Office opted not to file charges against 50 suspects and dropped charges on four others. The cases stretch from last October through early July. Prosecutors starting dropping the cases last month.

Assistant State Attorney Hope Pattey said prosecutors must ensure rules and procedures are being followed.

"When we see that shortcuts are taken or procedures are not followed, we have an obligation to do what's right," she said. "That's what we did here."

Law enforcement officers must observe DUI suspects for 20 minutes before a breath sample is taken to make sure the suspects aren't belching, vomiting, or ingesting anything that might impact the test.

Pattey said Thomas admitted to factoring the amount of time that it took to drive a DUI suspect to a location to give a breath sample as part of the preferred face-to-face observation period.

"He admitted that he had done it," she said. "We drew the conclusion that if he had done it in one case then he had done it in all of them."

"At this point, it would be way premature to say that Deputy Thomas has done anything inappropriate," said Gary Hester, chief of staff at the Sheriff's Office.

"The purpose of the administrative investigation at this point is to ferret out what the facts are and what's fiction," he said. "If there are issues that need to be addressed, then we'll address them."

Hester said the sheer number of cases that prosecutors dropped is what makes the situation significant.

"I guess in some ways what's made it newsworthy is he is very motivated, worked very hard and went out trying to get drunk drivers off the road," Hester said.

His personnel file includes past evaluations that he was "performing exceptionally well" in the DUI Enforcement Squad.

Even if the arresting officer's intentions aren't bad, we all know what road is paved with intentions.