Americans with Disabilities Act
Americans With Disabilities - ADA
42 U.S.C.A. §§1201 et seq. addresses the Americans With disabilities Act (ADA). The case law is limited in this area as it applies to DUI defense in Oklahoma but there is clear support that a disabled person cannot be discriminated against by a public entity. A police department is a public entity.
The law requires that reasonable accommodations be made for a person suffering from a disability. In a recent Texas case, a man who was deaf was arrested for DUI after touching his nose 25 times rather than 6 as orally instructed by the officer. He insisted he could have done it properly if he had understood the instruction and his blood test came back negative. He sued and was awarded $230,000 in damages.
There is limited case law applying to other types of disability but it does appear that the police must make reasonable accommodations for people with disabilities when administering the SFSTs.
