Austin, Texas DWI lawyer Jamie Spencer has written several very interesting posts about a medical condition called nystagmus.  Nystagmus is a medical condition that describes involuntary eye movement, and police officers are trained to look for these involuntary twitches in field sobriety tests as an indication that a driver is impaired.

The problem, as attorney Spencer points out, is that there are many causes of nystagmus that have nothing to do with alcohol consumption.  As such, an officer who testifies that a defendant failed a field sobriety test because that defendant failed a horizontal gaze nystagmus test can and should be aggressively cross examined.

If you are a defendant in a DUI case here in Georgia and you have a medical condition that might cause nystagmus or similar symptoms, please let your DUI defense counsel know so that your performance in a field sobriety test can be challenged.