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Cops' new weird trick: fake DUI charges for everyone they pull over [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2026-02-16  

Courts have held that police can book people on DUI even if they pass field sobriety tests and blow under the limit on a breathalyzer. The predictable result is an explosion of false DUI charges. In Tennessee, 41 DUI arrests made by a single Highway Patrol officer were dismissed; local media found that 22 of the cases involved drivers with no alcohol or drugs in their systems.

Asa Pearl made the arrests between 2021 and 2024, according to public records in Bedford County, Tennessee, and appears to have been caught due to the sheer number of cases being challenged and dismissed in court.

A spreadsheet compiled by the Bedford County District Attorney's office for WSMV4 Investigates shows the breakdown of the 41 dismissed cases. In eight cases, including LaFlamme's, drivers had neither drugs nor alcohol in their system. In 14 other cases, the driver's blood alcohol level was within legal limits and no drugs were found.The remaining 19 dismissed DUI cases were dropped for other reasons, including Pearl being unavailable for court or unable to recall details of the arrests, according to the district attorney's office. David McKenzie, LaFlamme's attorney, said word was spreading in Bedford County about Pearl's DUI dismissal rate.

Pearl resigned in 2024, reports WSMV News, but signifies "a systemic problem" at the roadside, according to one attorney it quoted. WSMV found another district with 40 "no substances detected" DUI arrests, and districts with 37, 25, 17, 15 and 9–all representing officers with the Tennessee Highway Patrol. The sheriff's office in Sumner County, just northeast of Nashville, had 16 cases. La Vergne Police Department, lurking on major highways heading southeast out of Nashville, has 11 "no substances detected" DUI cases choking the docket.

The problem, it turns out, is nationwide. WSMV's "Sobering Problem" investigation found cases from the California to the Carolinas. It turns out that field sobriety tests are much better at generating probable cause than they are at detecting insobriety, but "I smell alcohol" and "I thought I saw you swerving back there" and "admitting you take any medication of any kind whatsoever" also pass muster as probable cause, so it hardly matters. If they need the numbers, you're getting a DUI.

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2026/02/16/cops-new-weird-trick-fake-dui-charges-for-everyone-they-pull-over.html

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