His BAC was 0.076 and 0.079. Being 0.001 below the legal limit doesn't seem like a great defense.
It was legal. Do we now convict people because they were simply close? If someone say ate some hemp that had say a 0.01% THC content show up in their blood analysis, then we should prosecute them under schedule 1 drug federal protection laws then, right?
We currently do prosecute and convict people who are below the legal limit. O.08 is more of a guideline then an absolute, as everyone has different physiology and thus are impacted by inebriation in different ways.
This, combined with the failed field test is pretty damming evidence.
Ignoring the fact that you would have to heat pounds upon pounds of hemp to achieve a detectable amount of THC. We always have and still do convict people over incredibly nominal amounts. For most of history it's been a pass/fail test with no discrimination over actual amounts.
He was under the limit, he failed at the "standing on one leg" test supposedly. He's fat and stocky, not odd for him to "fail" that as the tests are specifically designed for most people to fail at least one part of them.
For example, when asked to touch the tip of your index finger to your nose, if you touch where the majority of your finger prints are on the outer part of your finger to your nose, you can be considered "fail" on a sobriety test because you did not touch the closest part of finger flesh near the nail to the nose, instead you touched "the pad" of your finger to your nose.
The tests are made to increase arrests and have nothing to actually do with sobriety. He passed the alcohol sobriety tests, so there is no reason for this to be news, other than as a smear.