When the officer goes in with a confrontational approach it becomes much more difficult to get the cooperation of even an innocent driver. Without the driver's cooperation he cannot gather the evidence required to make the case and he is forced to either back down or arrest the driver and fudge the evidence to prove his case. That's probably why he lost the prior case.
Oh, I agree -- the arrest should never have happened. But consider something.
This officer, riding alone, stopped a car driving at night without headlights, containing four individuals of whom three were drunk males (one and one-third pitchers of beer each, average), and one female driver who refused to take a field sobriety test.
Granted the officer wasn't wrapped real tight, but even somebody with a level head is going to be a little edgy with that crew in front of him being uncooperative.
The way I read the story, the driver's husband set the scene for confrontation right away by telling her to refuse the officer's requests and instructions.
I'll tell you this -- when I get stopped at night, I am polite to the police, I do pretty much what I'm told to do, and I have yet to get busted. I've been driving for 40 years, and that includes a lot of years that included getting (*cough*) altered and driving (carefully, but nevertheless...).
I was stopped maybe a dozen times, in all states of mind. I'm male, so I didn't get to bat my eyelashes or cry and get away with it (as some female friends did). But being polite and cooperative kept me out of trouble, every time.
There was one time when I was driving (being the most sober, relatively speaking), and we got stopped for a tail-light out. My buddy in the back seat (wildly drunk) started yelling, "Tell that f*ing pig to go f*k himself!"
Far from doing as this woman did (follow her husband's instructions and tell the cop to get lost), I turned around and told my buddy to shut the hell up, and I apologized politely to the cop on my buddy's behalf.
My car was obviously full of drunks (luckily, all over the legal age). The officer checked my papers, had me do a quick field test (which I passed), asked me where I was headed, and admonished me to get my friends home safely. Which I did.
I have no doubt whatsoever that if I'd talked back to the cop the way this woman did, we would have all been busted.
That doesn't make this cop in the story right. Just sayin', talking back to a cop doesn't get you -out- of trouble.