What happens if the officer didn't watch me for 20 minutes?
Two branches here, and the honest answer is that most cases land somewhere between them.
Where the deviation is minor — the officer stepped away briefly, or looked down at paperwork — courts have generally found substantial compliance. That argument alone won't carry a case.
Where a meaningful portion of the period is unaccounted for and the State can't produce evidence about what happened during it, the analysis changes. The burden of establishing substantial compliance is the State's, not yours, and it isn't satisfied by an officer testifying that he assumes nothing happened.
What decides it is usually the record rather than the testimony. Booking room video, the instrument's own timestamps, the arrest report's stated times, and any other officer's body cam can establish where everyone actually was. Those sources contradict each other more often than you'd expect.
Every case in this category turns on a timestamp. Find out which one is yours. ---
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