BAC Level is not Dispositive in Tennessee :: Tennessee Criminal Lawyer Blog

A recent Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals decision interpreted Tennessee’s DUI statute in a way that may prove confusing in the future. In the case, styled State v. Wright, the defendant was convicted of DUI based on the evidence that the officer saw him swerve over the center line of the road three times, the defendant approached a stop sign and turned left without stopping, the officer detected the odor of alcohol when she approached the vehicle, that defendant needed support when he exited the vehicle, and that the defendant failed all five field sobriety tests. Despite this, the defendant’s BAC level was only .03%, well below the legal limit of .08%. The court held that although the defendant’s BAC level was not sufficient to give rise to the legal inference that the defendant was driving under the influence, the evidence nevertheless supported a finding that the defendant was guilty of DUI. This is probably the right result in the case, as intoxication does not necessarily have any correlation to alcohol or BAC level and the defendant seems clearly to have been intoxicated. However, this case begs the question of what purpose the BAC restriction has at all.

Tennessee’s DUI statute, T.C.A. section 55-10-401, provides that it is unlawful for a person to control a motor vehicle on a public roadway or place while:

Under the influence of any intoxicant, marijuana, narcotic drug, or drug producing stimulating effects on the central nervous system; or

The alcohol concentration in the person's blood or breath is eight-hundredths of one percent (.08 %) or more.

In light of the decision in Wright, does the BAC requirement in (2) serve any purpose whatsoever? Having any alcohol in your bloodstream would qualify you under (1) and the ruling in Wright indicates that BAC level cannot be dispositive as to the issue of whether or not someone is under the influence. Thus, the only purpose behind the BAC requirement of (2) seems to be to impose criminal liability on persons for whom the totality of the evidence indicates that they are not actually impaired or under the influence of alcohol, but who happen to have a BAC over .08%. However, as a matter of policy, should people be punished if they exhibit no signs of intoxication, but happen to have a BAC in excess of an arbitrary number? The ruling in Wright thus leads to many questions, most of which will never be answered as the statute is unlikely to change any time soon.

It could be argued that the way the statute is written shows an intent to exclude alcohol from the purview of (1) and place it solely within the scope of (2). However, the ruling leaves open the possibility that persons whose BAC concentration is less than .08% can still be arrested under the statute if the police officer determines that they are driving under the influence of alcohol at all. Thus, the requirements of (2) seem to have no real purpose other than to give rise to a legal inference of intoxication by alcohol. If this is the case, it would stand to reason that a BAC under the amount described in (2) should give rise to a legal inference of not being intoxicated by alcohol, but it does not. This statute is thus a confusing one, which will continue to present problems for criminal defendants in the near future.

Source: (State v. Wright, 35 TAM 5-26, 12/1/09, Knoxville, Woodall, 6 pages.)