Cameras curtailed at Hillsborough jail

TAMPA - Jailhouse videos used in recent years to dismiss DUI charges and file lawsuits charging excessive use of force will no longer be available to defense lawyers in Hillsborough County.

Six thousand accused drunk drivers are arrested in Hillsborough every year, using breath testing till now caught by security cameras and later scrutinized under Florida's Public Records law by defense lawyers and a company called DUI Undo.

The company's web site says they search for mistakes by law enforcement and refer accused drunk drivers to lawyers.

"I don't want somebody to have to go through and take a charge of DUI, when it's a wrongful arrest or the machine is inaccurate," said CEO Stephen Daniels.

Reviewing hundreds of hours of tapes, Daniels says he's seen what looks like excessive force by deputies. In one video, a woman who appears to be passed out, who deputies say was faking to avoid the breath test, ends up being dragged off the chair and across the floor by a deputy. She retained a lawyer, and is planning to sue, thanks to DUI Undo.

But now, with the opening of a new, much larger breath testing unit, camera coverage ends at the doors. There's no longer any view of the actual breath testing, nor can cameras see officers moving suspects around the unit.

In fact, the only place in the new breath testing unit where cameras catch anything more than doors are in the implied consent rooms, also a place where field sobriety tests can be videotaped.

Defense lawyers and DUI Undo are crying foul.

"It doesn't matter what profession," Daniels says. "You'll always have some people that don't do the right thing, and unfortunately those people that don't do the right thing, tarnish the people's image that do. So the best protection is to have cameras."

"If the public doesn't feel that we can be trusted", says Jail Commander Col. Jim Previtera, "that we have to have cameras in every inch of our facilities, that our deputies can't stand in front of a court of law and raise their right hand and swear to the oath they've taken, then what's that say about our society?"

Look for more controversy over the cameras in 2010.