LAW: "Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus"- The Eye Test

The "Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus", one of the most recent additions to the field sobriety test, and increasingly used amongst law enforcement, has been proven a fallacy time and time again, yet it can and will be used against you in the court of law. It has been said blood sugar, caffeine intake and nervousness are ingredients for failure. Not only is it fundamentally flawed but it is rarely administered by officers properly.The Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN) test was conceived, developed and promulgated as a simple procedure for the determination of the blood alcohol concentration of drivers suspected of driving while intoxicated (DWI). Bypassing the usual scientific review process and touted through the good offices of the federal agency responsible for traffic safety, it was rushed into use as a law enforcement procedure, and was soon adopted and protected from scientific criticism by courts throughout the United States. In fact, research findings, training manuals and other relevant documents were often held as secrets by the state. Still, the protective certification of its practitioners and the immunity afforded by judicial notice failed to silence all the critics of this deeply flawed procedure....In 2001 new research indicated that the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus (HGN), the cornerstone of the test battery was fundamentally flawed and that the HGN test was improperly conducted by more than 95% of the police officers who used it to examine drivers suspected of driving while intoxicated.This summary critique demonstrates that it is scientifically meretricious and that the United States Department of Transportation indulged in deliberate fraud in order to mislead the law enforcement and legal communities into believing the test was scientifically meritorious and overvaluing its worth in the context of criminal evidence....(1)Again, not accepted by the scientific community, yet crucial evidence to the legal community, deliberate fraud they say. The final quote from my resource states,"...silence from the scientific community cannot be considered an endorsement of the program."(2)Some quotes:"Using nystagmus as an indicator of alcohol intoxication is an unfortunate choice, since many normal individuals have physiologic end-point nystagmus...Without a neuro-opthalmologist or someone knowledgeable about sophisticated methods of eye movement recordings, it is difficult to determine whether the nystagmus is pathologic. It is unreasonable that such difficult judgments have been placed in the hands of minimally trained officers. Dell'Osso, "Nystagmus, Saccadic Intrusions, Oscillations and Oscillopsia", 147 Current Neuro-Opthalmology 147.""Nystagmus can be caused by problems in an individual's inner ear.... Physiological problems such as certain kinds of diseases can result in gaze nystagmus....Furthermore, conditions such as hypertension, motion sickness, sunstroke, eyestrain, eye muscle fatigue, glaucoma, and changes in atmospheric pressure may result in nystagmus. The consumption of common substances such as caffeine, nicotine, or aspirin also lead to nystagmus almost identical to that caused by alcohol consumption. State v. Witte, 836 P.2d 1110." (3)
1) (Booker, 144(3) Science and Justice 133-139, 2004),
2) http://www.duiblog.com/2006/06/28#a422
3) http://www.duiblog.com/2005/06/13#a198