FOX Nashville reporter Kelly Avellino says the Tennessee Highway Patrol is now in full defense mode over what many drivers have started calling “sober DUI” arrests – cases where a person is arrested for DUI, then later tests negative for alcohol and drugs.
Avellino frames the moment as the result of a nearly two-year FOX 17 News investigation that helped push Tennessee lawmakers to pass a new transparency law.
That law, Avellino reports, forced the release of Tennessee Bureau of Investigation data that had not been fully shared before, and the numbers landed like a brick: 2,547 people arrested for DUI since 2017 despite testing negative for alcohol and drugs.
Avellino also points to a newer, specific tally – 419 “sober DUI” arrests in 2024 – and she notes that figure includes all departments statewide, not just the Highway Patrol.
The picture is not small or rare, and that’s why the Highway Patrol’s response matters. When the numbers get into the thousands, “mistake” stops sounding like an occasional bad call and starts sounding like a system doing something wrong.
On his Lehto’s Law podcast, attorney Steve Lehto says the situation is exactly why people should look at the data with a skeptical eye, because claiming “every single one” of these arrests was righteous is not just a bold statement – it’s an almost unbelievable one.
Lehto says early in his breakdown that once you start dealing with statewide statistics, you have to ask whether Tennessee is a normal example or a weird outlier, because either answer points to a big problem.
If other states are seeing the same pattern, Lehto argues, then something is wrong everywhere.
But if Tennessee stands out, he suggests, then something is wrong in Tennessee specifically.
Colonel Matt Perry Takes The Stand And Denies A Quota
Kelly Avellino reports that Tennessee Highway Patrol Colonel Matt Perry testified before the Senate Transportation and Safety Committee, and that a senator raised the question people keep asking: how can someone be arrested for DUI with no alcohol or drugs in their system?
Avellino says the senator was Mark Pody, a Republican from Lebanon, and she describes the exchange as direct.
Perry, in Avellino’s report, insisted there is “certainly no quota,” pushing back against news reports and criticism that claim troopers are under pressure to make arrests.
Perry told lawmakers, as Avellino recounts it, that a trooper’s job is to arrest every impaired driver, and that when a case comes back negative on blood alcohol and drugs, the agency reviews every single one.
Avellino says Perry’s key argument is that even if lab tests come back clean, the person must have shown enough signs during field sobriety testing to give an officer reason to suspect impairment at the scene.
She reports Perry said THP reviews body camera footage on every one of these negative-test DUI cases.
Perry’s central claim, according to Avellino, is blunt: THP has not had a single reviewed case where their experts concluded the person probably should not have been arrested.
And he added an accountability promise, Avellino says, claiming that if a case ever did look unjustified, the agency would investigate the trooper and hold them accountable, with training added where needed.
Steve Lehto zeroes in on that same point and basically says, “Hold up.”
Lehto argues that when Perry says “we have our experts,” that doesn’t settle the argument – it starts a new one.
Because, as Lehto puts it, if your experts say thousands of arrests of people who tested clean were all correct, then maybe the experts are wrong, or the standards being used are not producing reliable results.
“There Are Indicators” – But Indicators Can Be Misread
Avellino says Perry explained what THP considers “evidence” in these cases, emphasizing roadside indicators and field sobriety clues.
Steve Lehto, quoting the same general language, lists the kinds of things Perry pointed to: field sobriety testing, roadside indicators, odor of alcohol, odor of certain drugs, bloodshot watery eyes, and slurred speech.
Lehto doesn’t deny that those can be used in DUI enforcement.
But he argues that if those “indicators” repeatedly lead to arrests where lab results show no alcohol and no drugs, then the obvious possibility is the indicators are being misread, exaggerated, or treated like proof when they are really only hints.
And Lehto makes a sharp, almost common-sense point: if an indicator leads to a false arrest, what exactly is it indicating?
Avellino raises the exact question that sticks in the throat: how can an officer report smelling alcohol, or say a person failed a test like nystagmus—something FOX 17 has found in documents—if there was no alcohol detected in the person’s system?
That gap between roadside notes and lab results is the heart of the controversy.
It’s also what makes these stories so hard to shrug off, because DUI is one of those charges that can stain a person fast, long before any court ever sorts out what happened.
Lehto spends a lot of time on that real-world damage.
He says people can lose jobs, income, the ability to drive, insurance coverage, and reputation, and he points out that some employers don’t wait for a conviction—they react to the arrest alone.
Even if a case is later dropped, the arrest is still a punch in the face, and it’s one that can take months or years to fully recover from.
The “Two Stops Per Hour” Document And The Quota Fight
Kelly Avellino reports FOX 17 obtained a chart sent to troopers in District 8 showing DUI arrest counts for individual officers.
She also says FOX 17 got hold of a THP manual stating an objective to “maintain a district average of two contacts per hour” or “two stops per hour.”
Avellino says critics, including some within the Highway Patrol, interpret that “two contacts per hour” language as a form of quota.
Steve Lehto pounces on that part with sarcasm, because he’s heard the “not a quota” defense many times before.
Lehto jokes that requiring two stops per hour is “not a quota,” it’s just a number that correlates with how many stops you must have per hour—then he repeats the phrase “that’s not a quota” to underline how absurd the distinction can sound to regular people.
Lehto also mentions that a source within THP told FOX 17 that “two contacts per hour” applies to patrolling in general, not just DUI enforcement.
That may matter technically, but the public doesn’t always care about the technical framing.
Because if a trooper is expected to produce a steady stream of stops, that expectation can still create pressure to “find something,” even if the policy doesn’t literally say “arrest X people.”
Avellino’s reporting makes the situation feel like a tug-of-war between what the agency insists it means and what officers and critics say it turns into on the street.
And Lehto’s commentary gives voice to the skeptical viewer who hears “not a quota” and thinks, “Okay, then why are the numbers so high?”
A Bigger Problem: Testing, Transparency, And Trust
Avellino reports that the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation had underreported the number of negative-test DUI arrests by hundreds since 2017, based on the newer data.
She says the previously reported figure was 609 arrests from 2017 to 2023, while the new total stands at 2,547 since 2017 – more than three times higher than what people were told before.
Lehto reads that and treats it like a warning flare.
He also highlights the TBI’s position, as shared in an email to FOX 17, that “no alcohol/intoxicants detected” does not inherently mean a driver was sober, because there may be substances that impair drivers but are not detected through their screening.
Lehto acknowledges that’s possible, even mentioning that some over-the-counter medications could impair someone if used improperly.
But he also points out the obvious court problem: if the state can’t prove what substance caused impairment, and the lab comes back clean, then prosecutors may struggle to get convictions, which makes the arrest itself feel even more questionable.
Avellino’s reporting suggests the new transparency law exists because lawmakers and the public were tired of vague answers and incomplete numbers.
Lehto’s perspective is that the more officials insist the system is flawless, the less believable they become.
He argues that once humans are involved, mistakes happen in every direction: some impaired drivers don’t get arrested, and some sober drivers do.
That’s not an insult to law enforcement – it’s reality.
So, Lehto says, for a colonel to claim they reviewed thousands of arrests and not a single one was a bad arrest is, in his words, “mathematically impossible.”
“Stop Cars,” Perry Says – But Lehto Warns About The Damage
Avellino reports another quote from Colonel Perry that explains THP’s overall philosophy.
Perry said, as Avellino recounts, “The only way to reduce fatality rates, to save lives, is more troopers stopping cars and being visible, being present,” adding that their focus is traffic-stop heavy and traffic-stop oriented – “not tickets, not arrests, not anything, just stop cars.”
Lehto admits that out of context, the idea of visible traffic enforcement can sound reasonable.
He even gives an example from his own experience, describing seeing someone doing a heel-to-toe test on the roadside and thinking, “I wouldn’t want to be them tonight,” suggesting that enforcement has a deterrent effect.
But Lehto says the credibility cost is enormous when the public learns thousands of people were arrested, booked, and humiliated, then tested clean, and the agency still insists it was all “good arrests.”
And that’s where the whole debate turns into something bigger than DUI.
Because once the public believes the system won’t admit even a single mistake, people start wondering what else the system won’t admit.
My own take, reading Avellino’s reporting alongside Lehto’s commentary, is that the scariest part isn’t even the number.
It’s the certainty.
When an agency leader says they reviewed everything and found no bad arrests – none – it sounds less like accountability and more like a refusal to face reality, and that refusal is what fuels lawsuits, anger, and distrust.
Lehto ends by saying federal courts may ultimately decide how righteous these arrests were, especially with lawsuits already piling up.
And if taxpayers end up footing big settlement bills over even one of these “good arrests,” he suggests THP may have to dial the entire approach back, even if they don’t want to.
Because in the real world, “we reviewed it and found no mistakes” doesn’t close the argument.
It just guarantees the argument will move to a judge, where “indicators” have to survive cross-examination, not just a Senate hearing.
Ed spent his childhood in the backwoods of Maine, where harsh winters taught him the value of survival skills. With a background in bushcraft and off-grid living, Ed has honed his expertise in fire-making, hunting, and wild foraging. He writes from personal experience, sharing practical tips and hands-on techniques to thrive in any outdoor environment. Whether it’s primitive camping or full-scale survival, Ed’s advice is grounded in real-life challenges.
