When you get charged with a DUI, every single person is told by the police officers that they failed the standardized field sobriety exercises. In Maryland, there are three standardized field sobriety exercises. One is the horizontal gaze nystagmus test. Two is the walk and turn test. Three is the one leg stand test. These tests come from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration battery on standardized field tests for detection of DUIs. The problem is that not everyone fails the field tests. Often the police officers do not know how to score these tests or how to interpret the tests correctly. Secondly, you may have a reason, for instance, a medical reason, which would allow the tests to be interpreted as a failure by the police officer when, in fact, what’s happening is your medical problem is interfering with the proper administration of that test. Let me give you an example. For instance, some people who are 50 pounds or more overweight are not candidates to do field sobriety exercises. They will be off balance just because of the nature of their body type. The police officer might interpret your performance on those field tests as being indicative that you are under the influence of alcohol when, in fact, they are attributable not to the alcohol but to your medical condition. That’s why it’s so important when you talk with a lawyer about representing you in a DUI case that they take a detailed medical history from you and pursue getting all of your medical records and discuss your medical history with an expert who can give an opinion as to whether or not that’s interfering with the perception of the police officer that you failed the field test. Failure of the field test does not necessarily mean that you are guilty of a DUI, and it does not necessarily mean that you were under the influence of alcohol.