Sunday, November 22, 2009

Nebraska Supreme Court allows testimony of police officer who was certified as a "drug recognition expert" (DRE) that defendant was too impaired from marijuana to drive over defendants Daubert objection. State v. Daly, S-08-192, 278 Neb. 903. "Although (research on the validity of DRE evaluations has) not always published in (peer-reviewed journals) per se, DRE research has been the subject of considerable scientific scrutiny..(the) use of the protocol and its various elements has certainly not been kept a secret nor is there evidence that its proponents have attempted to avoid the limelight..(the) risk of a false positive is low. Any risk is mitigated further by the fact that identifying the specific drug that caused a driver’s impairment is inessential—the DUI statute only requires proof that the defendant was under the influence of "any drug" and does not require the drug to be identified by the arresting officer (§ 60-6,196 )."

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