Georgia college student and football player McClain Fineran did what most parents would hope their kid would do.
He bumped a parked car, stayed at the scene, and called police so the owner wouldn’t wake up to mystery damage.
By sunrise, the 19-year-old kicker was in jail on a DUI charge – even though, as Justin Gray of WSB-TV reports, his breath test was 0.00 and later blood and urine tests showed he was completely sober.
That’s why consumer investigator Justin Gray and criminal defense attorney James White now say this case isn’t just a mistake.
White goes even further, accusing the officer of essentially fabricating a DUI on a sober athlete, and using “junk science” field sobriety tests to justify it.
Crash, Call For Help – Then Handcuffs
According to Justin Gray’s reporting for WSB-TV, the story starts in an empty parking lot at Shorter University in Rome, Georgia, on October 2, 2025.
Fineran had been studying for a midterm in the computer lab when he thought he hit a parked car while leaving.
He did what he was “taught,” as he told Gray – he stayed put and called police so an accident report could be taken.
Body camera video obtained by Justin Gray shows officers arriving and talking about the minor bump. One officer says, “He said he’s leaving the computer lab,” and notes that Fineran is the one who called them out there.
Instead of just taking a simple accident report, the officers quickly shift to investigating him for DUI.
They give him a breathalyzer. One officer says, “Keep going, keep going,” as Fineran blows. Then: “Yep, that’s what I thought.”
The result is a zero. No alcohol at all.
Despite the 0.00 BAC, Justin Gray reports that Fineran is told he’s being arrested for DUI “based off the accident that you had and the field sobriety test that we did,” with the officer saying he has probable cause to believe Fineran is “under the influence of something other than alcohol.”
Fineran tells Gray and the officers on video, “I don’t drink, never have. Haven’t done drugs, never have. It’s just not what I do.”
Tests That Say “Impaired” When You’re Sober
The entire case hinged on field sobriety tests.
Justin Gray says that, in Georgia, police often have to rely on how they interpret these roadside tests for drugs, because blood and urine samples sent to the GBI lab can take months to come back.
In Fineran’s case, those lab results are now in – and Gray reports they are completely clean: no illegal drugs and not even prescription medication in his system.
Yet on camera, the Rome officer keeps insisting, “You’ve definitely done something.” When Fineran answers that he just drinks energy drinks, the officer replies, “You’re not acting like somebody that’s on an energy drink.”
Fineran tries to explain, “Because I’m nervous. I’ve never been in this position before.”
Gray points out that this is not the first time Channel 2 Action News has raised concerns about drug-related field sobriety tests. In an earlier investigation he referenced, another driver, Lenny Daniel, also blew a zero on the breath test but was still charged with DUI based on the same kinds of tests.
Justin Gray cites a Journal of American Medicine study on marijuana and field sobriety testing where officers classified 49% of totally sober subjects as “impaired.”
Former police trainer Joshua Ott told Gray that, given those numbers, officers might as well “flip a quarter.”
If nearly half of sober people can be labeled impaired, that’s not a safety tool anymore — it’s a coin toss with someone’s freedom and future attached to it.
Legal Expert: “Junk Science” And Bad Training
James White, a criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor who runs the channel Southern Drawl Law, watched the bodycam and came away furious.
In his video, White says straight out that he believes field sobriety testing is “junk science,” especially when used by officers who, in his words, “don’t give a [care] about the science” and don’t follow the required standards.
White walks through the official NHTSA (NHTSA/NHTSA-style) guidelines and shows how the Rome officer fails them step by step.
He says the horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN) exam — the eye test with a finger or pen — was done far too fast, with circular motions that are actually “strictly prohibited” because they can create eye bouncing instead of revealing real impairment.
According to White, the officer completes what should be a slow, 16-second pass in about 10 seconds, waves the stimulus in circles, and shines light across Fineran’s eyes – essentially turning the test into a light show instead of a medical-style screening.
White points out that the officer later claims “one clue” on HGN, but the official standard requires at least four clues (two per eye) to support impairment.
He also notes that the walk-and-turn and one-leg stand tests are performed “absolutely flawlessly” by Fineran, or at worst show one questionable “clue” due to confusing instructions – not nearly enough to justify a fail under the written rules.
In White’s view, the officer ignored the “totality of the circumstances” in the way courts actually define it.
He reminds viewers that totality includes not just facts that support suspicion, but also exculpatory facts – things like steady balance, no odor of alcohol, clear speech, and the fact that this student voluntarily called police when he could easily have left the scene.
White argues that when officers treat every neutral or innocent detail as suspicious and ignore evidence that points away from impairment, “the analysis is constitutionally defective.”
That’s why he says bluntly that, if this case doesn’t lack probable cause, “I’ve never seen a case that lacks probable cause.”
Rome Police Stand By The Arrest
Justin Gray reports that the DUI charge against McClain Fineran has now been dropped.
The toxicology came back clean. The prosecutor declined to move forward.
But the Rome Police Department is still defending the arrest itself.
In a detailed written statement sent to Channel 2 and quoted by Gray, the department argues that officers only need probable cause “based on the information available at that moment,” not hindsight based on lab results.
They say the responding officer “had sufficient probable cause to make the initial arrest,” and insist that a later dismissal “does not mean the arrest itself was improper.”
Rome Police say the officer was disciplined only for “deficiencies in report documentation,” not for taking Fineran into custody.
James White sees that very differently.
In his breakdown, he calls the department’s response “gaslighting,” arguing that poor report writing is just a symptom of a deeper problem – incompetence in training and a culture that, in his words, “treat[s] everyone like criminals” and laughs about ruining lives.
He highlights bodycam audio where officers joke about how “messed up” they think Fineran is because he isn’t totally sure about the paint transfer on the other car. White says that clip shows they were ready to see impairment before any real investigation began.
A Young Athlete’s Life Turned Upside Down
Whatever the internal paperwork says, the impact on Fineran is real.
Justin Gray reports that the 19-year-old’s GBI tests came back completely clean, and the DUI charge is now gone.
But the arrest still happened. The mugshot still exists. The night in jail is still burned into his memory.
Gray says Fineran has now entered the transfer portal, feeling he has to leave Rome and Shorter University behind because of the stigma.
“It was stressful, traumatizing,” Fineran told Justin Gray. “I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.”
His mother, Christine Fineran, told Gray, “If we’re seeing people getting arrested when they’re sober and they’re not under the influence, there’s a problem.”
His father, Daryl, said it more bluntly: “It’s wrecked his life. He’ll be explaining this for the rest of his life, the DUI charge, when job interviews, etc. It never goes away.”
That’s the part that’s easy to forget from a distance.
For the officer, this might look like just another incident report. For the department, it’s a “probable cause” debate and a documentation reprimand.
For the kid who did the right thing and called police on himself, it changed the course of his college career and will follow him into adulthood.
Bigger Questions About Trust And Cooperation
Justin Gray’s and James White’s reporting both land in the same uncomfortable place: what happens to public trust when a sober, clean-tested, college athlete can be jailed for DUI based almost entirely on an officer’s subjective reading of shaky roadside tests?
White warns that, if this pattern continues, more people will simply refuse to do field sobriety tests at all, which is their legal right, because they won’t trust that officers are using them fairly.
He argues that if officers keep ignoring exculpatory facts and departments keep defending obviously bad arrests, people will stop cooperating with investigations entirely.
Gray, for his part, connects this case back to the larger pattern he uncovered: other sober drivers like Lenny Daniel being charged; studies showing half of sober people flagged as “impaired”; and departments holding on tightly to a tool that may be far less scientific than the public has been led to believe.
In the end, the Fineran case isn’t just about one Georgia officer or one college football player.
It’s about whether the system is willing to admit when its favorite tools don’t work as advertised – and whether “probable cause” is being used as a shield for bad decisions instead of a guardrail for our rights.
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The article Georgia officer accused of making up DUI charge against sober college football player first appeared on Survival World.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
