Sorry all, but I'm going to have to go against the grain here. As I understand it, the cop was well within his rights to arrest the woman, regardless of how much she had to drink, and here's why. He was able to pull her over because she was driving at night with her headlights out, that warrants a traffic stop if the officer so chooses. Now most police officers will not just 'pull someone out of their car, cuff them, and throw them in the back of a squad' for not having their headlights on as this woman stated. All stories are one sided, remember that. My guess is that when the PO went up to the womans car, he smelled the alcohol on her, giving him probable cause to give her a field sobriety test on the spot. Given the combination of alcohol on her breath (after she originally told him she didn't 'really' have anything to drink, and then changed her story) and her lights out while driving at night, I may well have done the same thing in his position. Furthermore, she failed multiple parts of the field sobriety test, whether or not this should be considered 'fair' is negligible, the PO felt that she was intoxicated, and took the correct action. It doesn't matter what your BAC is according to the law, the law leaves the descretion up to the offcer and the reason for that is different people react differently to alcohol in their bodies, i.e. tolerance. Some people can function just fine at .06 or .07, and some people can't at .03 or .04, there are many other factors besides tolerance but the point is, just because she had a low BAC does not mean that it didn't affect her, she could have been very impaired (key word impaired) from a BAC of .03. She won't admit the fact that she was impaired while driving and get help, insted she wants to fight the charge and (basically) call a seasoned police officer an incomptent piece of ???? in the process. Shame on her.
(zipping up flame suit...)
BTW, 1 drink can get you in trouble in most any state, I believe the law is called DWI (driving while impaired) as opposed to DUI (driving under the influence). Basically what I was trying to say earlier - this law puts you at fault if you are impaired, not if you are over the legal limit. But like is fairly common, I could be wrong.