 HGN is the most scientifically complex of all the field's variety exercises and most accurate. We're going to dive deep into it so you have an understanding of what the cops are looking for when they look at your eyes. Remember, my position is people should refuse to do the exercises, but I want to shed some light on HGN and DUI too. My name is Jeff Lodder. I'm a criminal defense attorney in Florida. Before becoming a defense attorney, I spent 13 years as a cop. Although I've worked in a number of different specialized areas, I spent a lot of time perfecting DUI. After watching this video, you're going to know more about HGN the most cops now. If the officer is following standardized procedures, horizontal gaze astagmus should be the first test that he administers. Horizontal gaze astagmus tests impairment to the central nervous system. The impairment manifests in the form of jerky movements known as saccades. The saccadic movements are referred to as nystagmus. So let's talk about how this works. The central nervous system is made up of the brain and the spinal cord. With regard to the brain, we're specifically speaking of thecipital lobe. This is where the visual information is processed. With regard to the spinal cord, we're talking about the area of the spinal cord near the base of the skull that's responsible for controlling the eye muscles. Information is received from the outside world via the eyes and that information is converted into electrical impulses that travel from neuron to neuron and eventually making their way to thecipital lobe. Now we're talking about instantaneous movement here. The information only has to travel six inches and it's moving in about 270 miles per hour. Once the impulses arrive at thecipital lobe, the brain generates a proper response depending on what the stimulus is. Dialect the pupils, move the eyes left, move the eyes right, squint. Regardless of the desired response, thecipital lobe forwards the plan to the spinal cord so the response can be converted into an execution. Once the spinal cord receives the plan from thecipital lobe, it sends out an action impulse towards the eye. This entire process goes on continuously. Snap your fingers, 50 messages have been sent and received and processed for response in that period of time. So let's talk a little bit about these impulses. Each neuron is incredibly complex. We're only going to discuss one of the major parts called the million sheet. The million sheet is a smoothly paved autobahn expressway. The electronic impulses move along the outside of this sheet at lightning fast speeds. I don't know how but it's my understanding that consumption of alcohol disrupts the flow of communication by putting like potholes in the middle of the autobahn. Now I'm not sure if that's an accurate analogy but that's how I've always envisioned it. Now we know the impulses are moving very quickly and we know that alcohol disrupts the flow of information but we're not done because the communication is carried to the eye and that's where the officer is going to see the impairment. The eye is controlled by six extraocular muscles that surround and attach to the eyeball. Each muscle has a particular function for moving the eye left right up and down clockwise and counterclockwise. These six extraocular muscles are some of the most sensitive muscles in the entire human body and it makes sense right? Think about how fast the eye has to move to play catch, drive a car, run, ride a bike. The eyes have to process information almost instantly. I don't recall where I heard it but I've read the extraocular muscles are about 20 times more sensitive than the bicep muscles. One of the underlying principles that must be understood is that alcohol has an affinity for water meaning that alcohol is attracted to areas of the body where the water is. Your brain, your muscles and your eyeballs all have particularly high water content meaning when you drink alcohol it makes its way to those parts of the body. Since the extraocular muscles are the most sensitive muscles in the human body it's only logical that they'd be the first muscle to show signs of impairment. So here's the recipe. You have an impaired message being delivered at 270 miles per hour to the most sensitive muscles in the human body and those muscles are loaded with alcohol. So I'm not sure if you're aware but there's a lot of expensive toys out there the government's thrown grant money at. For example this video of the eyes was shot on a $6,000 camera called a Hawkeye device. It was given to me with no signature, no instructions, no accountability. Now I gave it back but I don't think anyone would even noticed if I'd kept it. Anyway so this is one of the videos I made with the Hawkeye device use recording HGN. This video is a pretty good indicator of what nystagmus looks like but keep in mind this is the first time I used the Hawkeye device and I wasn't really familiar with how it worked. My range of motions and my timing were off. Here's the bad news with HGN. It's real and it can screw you over. Imagine this you're leaving happy hour you're feeling good and relaxed but otherwise you're perfectly fine to drive. You got normal coordination, normal speech but your eyes are red and your breath smells like alcohol. If you get pulled over nine out of ten street level cops aren't even going to suspect you a DUI. But that one officer that one in ten if you let him look at your eyes he's going to know your BAC is right at or near the legal limit. Now I know there's a lot of people out there that think HGN is a bunch of crap and that it isn't accurate and it probably makes more sense for me to say that too but I would rather address problems head on instead of burying my head in the sand. Is HGN perfect? No not by any means but in my prime I got pretty good at estimating BACs just by looking at people's eyes. If you're borderline and you don't give the cop the opportunity to look at your eyes you have a much better chance of making it home. But if you do let the officer administer HGN on you there's some things you can do to undercut the results. Now these tactics won't work all the time. If the cop is good he's going to know what you're trying to do to defeat the test. You'll get arrested for DUI and the cop will use your attempted manipulation as evidence against you. So the first hack for HGN is don't do it but I've already said that so we're going to move forward. So the second hack for HGN is look beyond the stimulus. The nystagmus is most pronounced when the eyes are fixated on a particular object near your face. The studies have shown that ranges between 8 and 20 inches are highly accurate. The closer being to your face the worse for you. If you look beyond the stimulus or the pen light then your extra ocular muscles won't be as strained and then nystagmus won't be present or if present will be much more difficult to see. Here's where you'll get caught doing it. When you take your eyes off the stimulus your pupils dilate noticeably. Now maybe one in one thousand street cops are going to recognize this or have enough skills to recognize it but it could happen. The third hack is slightly turn your head. The difference between arrest and no arrest when it comes to HGN is only a matter of inches. Many people unwisely turn their heads back and forth following the light when the officer moves it. I got a great video showing an extreme version of this. I'll post it right here. That's a horrible approach. However if you're able to slightly turn your head in the direction the light is moving you've got a good chance at reducing the angle and thereby decreasing the likeness that HGN clues will be observed. I know this is difficult to understand. You can see here that if the stimulus is 12 inches away from the face and 12 inches to the right or left you'll reach the critical 45 degree angle but if you turn your head ever so slightly the distance the officer has to move to reach the 45 degree angle increases dramatically. Now you must turn your head towards the direction of light. If you move away from the direction of the light you'll be increased to your intoxication according to the HGN test. The fourth hack for HGN which really is going to hack is that most cops aren't qualified to testify to the science behind HGN. Before being allowed to testify you have to be recognized as an expert witness. Now this means all the science behind this stuff that I've been talking about probably will never come out in court. Instead the officers can be asked to testify about your general ability to follow instructions. Did he turn his head? Did he do what he was too old to do? Now there's a ton more to HGN that can be discussed but I look forward to your input and your comments to determine which direction I go with additional videos. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Give me a thumbs up if you enjoyed it and please subscribe if you want more videos like this. I'm putting them out weekly.