Implicit Biases are held by all regardless of race, gender or status, and that bias has the ability to spill into our work. This talk with take a look at the role bias can play in the investigation, prosecuting and sentencing of traffic cases, and help us to look inward to be cognizant of what biases we may possess and if those biases play a role in how we handle our cases.

This session will discuss how Utah became the first state in the country to have a per se impaired driving level of .05 BAC. What happened? What is happening now? Where is this going? This session will discuss the mandatory training included in the statute for law enforcement that goes along with the amended per se impaired driving level. It will review how police, prosecutors, and the courts have all responded to the change and how things are really going when the rubber hits the road in Utah now with four years of experience after the change took place.

Topics will include a discussion on changing the cannabis narrative, identifying indicators of impairment on a cannabis DUI investigation, knowing some of the differences between a cannabis-impaired individual as compared to an alcohol-impaired individual and learning about the various training programs available to law enforcement.

This session will provide an in-depth discussion of techniques and tips to improve the documentation of all aspects of a DUI Investigation. This presentation is taught from a prosecutor’s perspective and is designed to assist the law enforcement officer in improving his or her DUI Reports, so that a prosecutor can better use them to succeed in court. It will also serve as a way for prosecutors to better understand what needs to be included in a DUI Report so that they can work to better educate the law enforcement officers that they deal with. A variety of DUI Reports submitted from various agencies in actual DUI Prosecutions — both good and bad examples — will be discussed and serve as examples of how to better prepare and use the DUI Alcohol/Drug Influence Report in DUI cases.

This training boils down the cumulative knowledge of experienced law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges into simple rules for testifying. While these skills are applicable to all testimony, this training emphasizes their application during DUI testimony. Once the fundamentals are established, the training takes the next step and presents introductory basic science on human decision making and how to best account for that science during testimony in a DUI case.