Chicago DUI lawyer provides an update on Tiger Woods' non-DUI

This Chicago DUI lawyer has posted here about DUI's without alcohol or illegal drugs involved. Now comes more news that Tiger Woods took a Mulligan on a DUI charge after his car accident a few weeks ago.

December 7, Orlando, FL

Investigators suspected that golfer Tiger Woods was under the influence when he crashed his SUV outside his Isleworth home, but an attempt to collect medical evidence was denied by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney's Office, according to a law-enforcement document.

A witness who pulled Woods out of the Cadillac Escalade said the golfer "consumed alcohol earlier in the day" before the Nov. 27 accident, the record released by the State Attorney's Office said. The unnamed witness also said Woods had been prescribed Ambien, a drug used to treat insomnia, and Vicodin, a painkiller.

The witness is not identified by name in the document released Monday.

Confirmation that Woods was a DUI suspect was part of a one-page, Nov. 30 request by FHP Trooper Joshua A. Evans to the State Attorney's Office. Evans asked for help obtaining a subpoena for "medical blood results" from Health Central Hospital in Ocoee, where Woods was treated after the accident.

Assistant State Attorney Steve Foster, head of the State Attorney's Office's intake division, denied the request because of "insufficient information," the document states.

o be successful, a subpoena request must prove there is "probable cause" to think a crime has been committed, experts said.

In a Florida DUI case, the smell of alcohol on a driver's breath or evidence that prescription drugs were consumed are not enough by themselves to constitute probable cause.

Investigators must also show a suspect's "normal faculties" — the ability to walk, talk and make decisions in emergencies — have been impaired, said Stuart Hyman, a local attorney who specializes in drunken-driving cases.

"Suspicion is not the same as probable cause," said Hyman, who declined to discuss the specifics of Woods' case.

There are many who believe that Tiger Woods was given a break because he is a celebrity, that doesn't matter. What matters is that you can be charged with a DUI for using a prescribed medicine and operating a motor vehicle.