Dennys Astorga had been partying at the Cameo in South Beach the night he encountered Miami Beach police. A boat mechanic, he was nearing the end of a probation term for grand theft. He was driving a blue convertible Corvette, its top down. Officer Gary Aime and Sgt. Louis Fata caught up with him on Pinetree Drive after a bulletin went out over the radio: Watch out for a speeding blue Corvette driving erratically. Fata said Astorga was fishtailing as he drove. "I got behind him. Nothing, " he said. "He finally pulls over." Aime wrote that Astorga smelled strongly of alcohol, that he "staggered" as he left his car and was "unsteady on his feet." Two more officers arrived and gave the roadside sobriety tests, the police report states. Astorga does not recall four officers on the scene. "Another car came and said, 'Are you all right?' The other guy said, 'Don't worry, I've got it, ' and the other guy left, " Astorga said. At the station, Astorga took the breath tests. He blew .051 and .048 -- below the legal limit of .08. "When I blew, I said, 'I'm not drunk, ' " Astorga said. "They said, 'It can't be.' I said, 'I'm naturally like this. I had a drink and I'm happy.' " 'A lot of names'

He didn't stay happy for long. He gave a urine sample, which would later come back clean. But he spent the night in jail. "If you blow under the state limit, they should let you go, " he said. Nine Beach cops claimed to have a part in the case. Fata could not explain why so many names were listed. "There are a lot of names here, " he said. When the case went to court, Astorga decided to represent himself. He and his girlfriend said they saw a group of Miami Beach officers in the courtroom, all on overtime for his case. "I guarantee you if you showed them a picture of me now, they wouldn't know who I was. When I was in court, I heard them saying, 'Who is it? Who is it?' The one who arrested me said, 'It's that one, it's that one.' " Astorga agreed to plead no contest to reckless driving. The state dropped the drunk driving charge. But the court relief was too little, too late. The DUI arrest had triggered a probation violation on an earlier case. Astorga ended up in the Broward County Jail, where he sat for nine days until he got a hearing. "I had to sit in jail for no reason at all, " he said. THE ROADBLOCK AND THE GLADIATORS

Mark Faber was driving home from a Chinese restaurant when he stopped at a DUI checkpoint in Miami Shores. The license tag on his 1980 Lincoln had expired. He and a friend, a former rabbi, were in the car. Faber explained to a Florida Highway Patrol trooper that he hadn't renewed his tag because he was having money problems. But the trooper decided that Faber seemed nervous -- "rapidly answering questions, volunteering unnecessary information" -- so he asked him to get out of the car. Two other officers, including a Miami police sergeant, gave him a roadside sobriety test. During the test, the cops told Faber not to look up at them. But Faber briefly did. "I remember being very curious about what they were thinking. I looked up at them." One of the reasons Faber failed the roadside: He did not look at his feet the entire time. "To me, that says they're grasping at straws to find me drunk or impaired in some way, " Faber said. The police took Faber to a mobile trailer, where he blew zeroes. "They couldn't let go of me. They were saying, 'We could arrest you for having your license tag expired.' They kept asking me, 'Mark, when was the last time you smoked marijuana? . . . Mark, do you do crack? Mark, are you on heroin?' " His rabbi friend, meanwhile, watched as the police used two drug dogs to search the Lincoln. They found nothing. "It was very much a police state. I was helpless in that situation, " Faber said. "I said: 'Why can't I just pee in a cup? The tests could tell you I'm not on any substances, and I could go.' " The cops continued testing him, turning the lights on and off, peering into his eyes. "They would say, 'Definitely, he's on drugs, definitely, he's on drugs. We got him now, ' " Faber said. "They were like Roman gladiators." Faber heard something else. "They were talking about their overtime like crazy. That was like a big morale booster." After 20 hours in jail, Faber was released. He immediately got an independent drug test to prove his innocence and spent $1,500 to hire a lawyer. The case was dismissed. "I would like that this doesn't happen to other people, " Faber said. "That's my burning desire." Johnson A LUCKY BREAK FOR A DEFENDANT