Has anyone come up against defendant having vertigo as a defense to bad FST performance? What are some good resources to research?

I'm not a prosecutor--just a senior asst gen counsel for your friendly state police. However, as someone who once suffered an attack of vertigo caused by a severe ear infection, I don't see how the defendant managed to get into the car much less drive anywhere he really had been suffering from vertigo. Maybe you should just drop the DWI charge and go for reckless driving

Janette Ansolabehere

One of our prosecutors dealt with a defendant claiming sincope/syncope-- basically you just keel over in a faint. I suppose this is not what you're talking about, you mean just dizziness?

g

Argue Breath Test Refusal (because we know he refused); why did the Defendant refuse the BT when this is all a big mistake involving vertigo? Also argue no medical testimony brought to the jury by the Defense. Just because the Defendant says it, doesn't make it true. And if this person has vertigo, then he surely shouldn't be driving, let alone be drinking. That should shut down that defense pretty well.

Call Page Simpson at the Tarrant County DA's office. I know she won a DWI last year where vertigo was the defense.