Tiger Woods DUI - Arrest Video

[notfrommensa]

Tiger Woods was found earlier this week, asleep in his semi-wrecked Mercedes (Tires falt, Bumpers damaged) parked on a 6 lane road.

His arrest video and sobriety test has hit most if not all the news outlets. He failed most of the field sobriety tests (Passing the A-B-C test) and was arrested for suspicion of DUI.

He said that he was not drinking and the subsequent breathalyzer test verified that as he blew 0.00.

He said that he taken some prescription drugs, no illegal drugs and will be arraigned on July 5th

This has all recorded on dash-cams and body-cams (audio and video) and released to public, which apparently is protocol in Florida, if not most states. The arrest video and sobriety test are very damning to Tiger

How is it legal for police to release these videos? Pretty sure Tiger would not want this publicity and it would be very prejudicial to any potential jurors (as unlikely as that might be).

[friedo]

You don’t have any particular right to privacy on a public road. Police agencies (properly managed ones, anyway) generally prefer policies of transparency and treat most things as matters of public record unless there is some compelling reason for confidentiality (ongoing investigation, children are involved, etc.)

[notfrommensa]

@friedo

You don’t have any particular right to privacy on a public road. Police agencies (properly managed ones, anyway) generally prefer policies of transparency and treat most things as matters of public record unless there is some compelling reason for confidentiality (ongoing investigation, children are involved, etc.)

I really wasn’t going for the Privacy angle, as much as the prejudicial component, just in case this would go to a jury trial. (again, that’s unlikely)

FWIW, the Jupiter (Florida) Police also released a video of Tiger doing a breathalyzer in a police station.

[Loach]

@friedo

You don’t have any particular right to privacy on a public road. Police agencies (properly managed ones, anyway) generally prefer policies of transparency and treat most things as matters of public record unless there is some compelling reason for confidentiality (ongoing investigation, children are involved, etc.)

Many states have open records laws so it’s likely not just policy.

[Loach]

@notfrommensa

I really wasn’t going for the Privacy angle, as much as the prejudicial component, just in case this would go to a jury trial. (again, that’s unlikely)

FWIW, the Jupiter (Florida) Police also released a video of Tiger doing a breathalyzer in a police station.

I just checked and Florida does have jury trials for DUI. It may be settled before that of course. Often the police/prosecutors will want to hold on to tapes for just that reason. Often courts see it otherwise. It really depends on how strong Florida’s public records laws are.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@notfrommensa

I really wasn’t going for the Privacy angle, as much as the prejudicial component, just in case this would go to a jury trial. (again, that’s unlikely)

That’s why jurors are questioned before being empaneled, and can be challenged by both the defense & prosecution, and the judge too.

But many crimes are widely publicized now, especially sensational ones or ones involving celebrities. The Court system is quite used to dealing with this.