How do you explain HGN to a jury? Have your officer liken nystagmus to a billiard ball rolling across sandpaper? Windshield wipers activated on a dry windshield? We used to use a short animated HGN video (taken from NHTSA's video "The Truth Is In The Eyes").

I now have a new video. I spoke with Dr. Karl Citek about the issues with explaining HGN to juries. Dr. Citek edited one of his HawkEye videos for me. I now have two different videos:

One shows the eyes of an individual whose BAC is 0.000. Obviously, the subject has smooth pursuit, and NO nystagmus. This same person was then dosed (to a BAC I won't release so that officers don't try to correlate HGN with a certain BAC) to the point where he now has lack of smooth pursuit, and easily visible nystagmus at maximum deviation and prior to 45 degrees.

There is no audio or labels on the video that should cause admissibility (demonstrative only) issues. We have used the videos here with success. Juries I have spoken with after trial have ALL understood HGN (and realized that cops don't have to be doctors in order to see HGN...)

The only "issue" we've had so far is a few defense comments during closing about how the State obviously has the ability to video tape HGN, why didn't they do it to my client in this case? (Yeah - I'll work on getting a $6,350 system for every patrol car in my County - not to mention the officer safety and suspect cooperation issues involved....) Guilty verdicts in those cases anyway...

Dr. Citek has graciously allowed me to distribute this video. Even after zipping (compressing) the files, they are quite large (8MB and 9MB) so depending upon your agency's computer policies, e-mailing the videos may be an issue. If you think the video would be useful to you, and would like a copy, please feel free to contact me:

brent.robbins@dentoncounty.com

Brent Robbins
Investigator - Intake & Intoxication Crimes
Denton County DA's Office
940-349-2710