ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — If it hadn’t been for dashcam footage of the arrest of Chad Stephenson on a DUI charge, his attorney said a jury may not have acquitted him.
Stephenson was arrested and charged with DUI in August after a crash at the intersection of Landstreet Road and Orange Avenue.
The report submitted by Florida Highway Patrol trooper Jeremy Balzan said Stephenson’s whole head moved when told to follow a light with only his eyes and that he “kept swaying side to side.”
The dashcam footage, though, tells a different story.
In the footage, Stephenson’s head does not appear to move during the 2-minute-long flashlight test, and he is shown steady on his feet.
“Dashcam videos have been saviors for a lot of DUI cases, and fortunately there was one here because unfortunately the trooper’s memory … it wasn’t what the video said,” Stephenson’s attorney, Jennifer Synnamon, said.
A similar situation with Balzan happened in December, when the trooper arrested an off-duty Orange County sheriff’s deputy on a DUI charge.
Balzan’s report said the man was swaying back and forth, but the video, again, showed him standing steadily.
The deputy agreed to a breathalyzer test and blew a .05 BAC, lower than the legal limit of .08.
The state threw out the deputy’s charge, but took Stephenson’s to trial, where a jury acquitted him.
The Highway Patrol does a good job of getting drunken drivers off the road, but with Balzan there are some issues, Synnamon said.
“He needs more training,” she said. “FHP has great troopers. They have a good DUI program, so they do have the tools.”
FHP representatives did not immediately say if the results of the two DUI cases have affected Balzan’s status as a trooper.
Cox Media Group
