Excluding Drug Recognition Expert Evidence in Your DUI/Drugs Less Safe Case

By Ben Sessions on June 30th, 2024 in

If you are not filing motions to exclude DRE evidence in DUI drugs less safe cases, you are missing an incredible opportunity. You are missing an opportunity to knock out the evidence that the State really needs in order to attempt to show that your client is impaired as a result of drugs. Many people are unfamiliar with Harper motions. They can be intimidating because it requires lawyers to understand a little bit about the scientific process. That should not be the case.

Harper motions motions to challenge the use and admissibility of opinions based upon DRE evidence are simple to make. Once you raise the issue, the State is required to show the Court that the evidence has been accepted by other courts routinely (DRE evidence has not been) or that it is has reached a stage of scientific verifiability (it has not).

So, when you are confronted with a DUI “expert” who has been through hundreds of hours of training and claims to be a drug recognition expert, look to the law. Do not be fearful of the science because they do not have any to establish the reliability of this evidence.