More than 370 DUIs dismissed in Tennessee in first six months of 2024

TULLAHOMA, Tenn. (WSMV) - Tammy Allen admits it had been a long shift at work.

Twelve hours, in fact, leaving her factory job and heading to her new home in Tullahoma.

So when she saw red and blue lights in her rearview mirror, she wasn’t surprised.

In fact, body camera footage of Allen showed her admitting she was tired and that she may have drifted into the middle of the road.

“I just came off a 12-hour shift,” she said in the video. “I swear I’m not on drugs I just had a long shift.”

So when the Tullahoma officer asked her to perform a field sobriety test, her response on the body camera: “Sure, that’s fine.”

“I was like, OK, no problem, I can do this,” Allen told WSMV4 Investigates.

“You thought you’d perform well?” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“Yeah, I thought I’d do fine. Because I hadn’t been drinking,” Allen said.

In the video, Allen also admitted she’d take her prescription dose of Valium before she left work because she knew she’d have to go to sleep as soon as she got home. She had to be up the next morning at 8:00 for another shift.

WSMV4 Investigates watched her field sobriety test, and she appears to have performed well.

But the body camera footage shows the officer had real concerns about her sobriety.

He handcuffed her and arrested her for DUI.

“I was shocked. And I kept telling him, you’re making a mistake. I don’t drink,” Allen said.

And she was right.

Allen’s blood test showed she was completely sober, and her medication was within the legal limits.

Her DUI was ultimately dismissed, but not after she says she had to pay an estimated $8,000 in legal bills and towing costs.

“Honestly, I’m a paycheck-to-paycheck person. A lot of - most people are,” Allen said. “It’s a lot of money. It’s not money I had.”

Her arrest was the latest discovered by WSMV4 Investigates in our “Sobering Problem” investigation, which revealed how sober drivers in Middle Tennessee are getting arrested for crimes that they didn’t commit.

Allen hired attorney Doug Aaron, who is one of three attorneys in the state certified by the American Chemical Society as a " lawyer scientist.” Aaron can understand complex toxicology reports.

“It’s something that happens with regularity believe it or not,” Allen said.

Because WSMV-TV keeps documenting more and more cases of sober drivers being arrested for DUI, we wanted to know how often it’s happening.

We found DUI tracker reports from the District Attorney General Conference issued quarterly.

In the first six months of the year, 2,944 DUI arrests resulted in guilty convictions.

But 374 DUIs were either dismissed or what’s called “nolled” meaning a district attorney opted not to prosecute.

One quarterly report read, “Unfortunately, we are seeing more and more cases being dismissed or nolled.”

But a spokeswoman for the conference confirmed that they don’t know why the cases are being dismissed or nolled, only each district attorney’s office knows that.

WSMV4 Investigates reached out to the DA’s offices throughout the Midstate to ask if they are keeping track of why DUIs are being dismissed.

Aaron points out that the numbers of DUI charges are also used to reward police departments who make the most arrests.

“But they never went back to see if those people were convicted,” Aaron said.

Aaron also believes that drivers’ medication conditions, and the fact that people admit during field sobriety tests that they take prescription medications, cause sober drivers to be charged with crimes they never committed.

“DUI defense used to be defending the guy who stayed too long at the bar, had too much to drink and was driving home. anymore, it’s the church-going grandmother that had her prescription bottle in the car when she got stopped when she dropped her cell phone,” Aaron said.

“It does happen. It happened to me. and I’ve seen it happens to others,” Allen said.

If this has happened to you, please reach out to Jeremy Finley at Jeremy.finley@wsmv.com.

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